A Letter to Our Seed Team

Dismantling racism requires more than declarative allyship.

In the last two weeks, we’ve entered a period of deeper self-inquiry as a company to identify areas where we must rewire and rethink, and also the areas we are inspired to expand and reinforce.

For all of us, it begins here, within—and ripples outward to our world. Our first actions, shared in an email to our team at Seed Health.

 Friday, June 12, 2020

 Hi Seed Team,

As a company, we will voice and practice our intolerance for racism, injustice, hate, and inequality, both visible and invisible—with a long-term urgency that doesn’t end with one-time donations, news cycles, and social media hashtags. Anti-racism requires more than allyship. It is about human rights. And it is unconditional.

We have a responsibility to use our platform, our collective talents and our work in health and science to take concrete action and lead by example. 

We will begin imperfectly, but we will keep moving:

• We will form an internal Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Board by Monday, June 22nd. Anyone on the team may opt-in. By the end of June, we will identify and scope an external partner with deep expertise in diversity and inclusion to develop and work directly with our team and this Board. Thank you to everyone who reached out requesting to contribute directly. 
• It is critical to generate a comprehensive data set and analysis of our metrics today to define goals for representation that can set an example both within and beyond health and science. Ahead of a more formal assessment of our ecosystem, we will conduct a self-identification survey by June 30th—participation is optional, but encouraged.
• We are prioritizing the hiring of our Director of People who will have proven experience cultivating inclusive teams and company culture. 
• We will be closed next Friday in honor of Juneteenth and this will be an annual company holiday moving forward. We will also replace Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples’ Day and continue to audit the calendar—please feel comfortable taking paid time off for other holidays that are meaningful to you.
• Contract research organizations and academic centers vary significantly in ability to recruit diverse participants. We have formalized a partnership with a decentralized human clinical trials platform to augment our recruitment and ensure diversity across the clinical trials pipeline. Our first trial under this partnership begins recruitment in August.
• We have started conversations with Dr. Gregor Reid (Seed's Chief Scientist) and Dr. Jacques Ravel (Co-Founder + Chief Scientist of our sister company, LUCA Biologics) to nominate colleagues who are Black scientists and clinicians to increase the diversity of our Scientific Advisory Boards.
• We will continue the urgent prioritization of our work at LUCA Biologics, which includes therapeutics for bacterial vaginosis and preterm birth—conditions that disproportionately impact Black women globally. 
• Starting Monday, we will schedule both unstructured and structured time for dialogue. The structured sessions will be led by the DEI Board, in collaboration with outside expertise. As not everyone wants to share feedback publicly, we will share a new anonymous feedback form next week. 
• Please take time to independently review organizations and advocacy groups that resonate most with you. Seed will fund a $1,000 donation on behalf of each of you to the organization of your choice.
• We will continue providing PPE to those organizing peaceful protests while COVID-19 continues to be a risk. To start, this includes the donation of masks and will expand as we gauge what’s needed, especially ahead of the fall election.
• Our next three listening hours will go in depth on the history of policing in America, the racial data gap in research (which will include our work at LUCA Biologics), and the science behind Harvard’s implicit bias experiment. These will start in the next two weeks. Please continue suggesting topics for us to collectively learn about.
• We’ve conducted a full audit of the accounts we follow across our social channels to ensure what we consume as a brand is reflective of the values we embody. We’re also conducting an audit of our affiliates and partners to set goals for diversification. This will be completed by June 30th.  
• We will expand our work to highlight Black scientists (and others who move the fields of science and health forward) and collaborate with Black creatives to translate and change the way science is communicated.

While this is our starting point, it is imperative that policies do not feel like company work, but human work.  

Goals should not be mistaken for accomplishment or optics—they are simply a metric for prioritization and progress.

This will not be about box-checking. 

This will not be performative, but first principled. 

We will do this as a collective not in judgement, but with empathy and accountability. 

And while each of us experiences this differently, we believe greatly in the potential of our small, mighty team and know that with the conviction to do the deep work, we can do our part to nudge the world forward in the fight for an equitable and just society. 

Ara + Raja

Co-Founders and Co-CEOs