Our Commitment to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

The makeup of a team is central to its organizational culture.

Upstream’s work to reduce unintended pregnancy is grounded in addressing the inequities and bias in our healthcare system, particularly for low-income individuals and people of color. Our commitment to improving healthcare begins with cultivating a team of diverse perspectives, backgrounds, and experiences.

At Upstream, we embrace diversity, build opportunities for equity throughout our organizational structure, and seek to create a culture of inclusivity that welcomes individuals to bring their whole selves. We are better because of one another’s unique ideas, approaches and contributions. We accept our differences so that we can learn from one another, improve together, and ultimately achieve greater impact.

We acknowledge the complexity of the populations we serve in our ability to empathize, communicate and address the needs of our constituencies in a culturally sensitive manner.

We nurture and thrive on diversity because it benefits our organization, our partners, and our community. A diverse team provides greater opportunities to learn from one another’s unique perspectives, fostering stronger solutions and collaborations. Attracting, retaining, and developing a diverse talent pool is one of the most important ways we will ensure that we have the best team to achieve our goals. Diversity is both visible and invisible, and can include background, culture, language, ethnicity, gender, race, age, disability, sexual orientation, education (both formal and non-traditional), religion, work experience, family status, capabilities, veteran status, geographic/regional identification, personalities, and socioeconomic background.

We believe that diversity should be distributed throughout our organization to be effective; it must also be supported by internal policies and processes that enable all individuals to have equal access to opportunities. We humbly recognize that diversity, equity and inclusion are not finite goals; they require an ongoing commitment to acknowledge, incorporate, and sustain.