Our differences make us stronger.
Our team is dedicated to better serving the needs of our clients. We believe our team members should be diverse, and that diversity allows us to provide different perspectives and approaches for our clients.
Greenleaf Trust is committed to exploring diversity, equity, and inclusion, both within the organization itself, and the communities in which we serve. We continue to seek out opportunities to give back and serve, work to ensure our actions are better and more inclusive and to provide opportunities for our team members to uphold the same expectations.
We utilize a targeted diversity recruiting strategy that upholds our values through partnerships, social media groups, and a scholarship and internship program; which provides minority mentoring as well.
To embody our values, we formed an internal Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Team with the vision of educating team members on actively working to become an anti-racist organization that fully supports diversity, equity and inclusivity at all levels.
The Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Team Mission is as follows: The Greenleaf Trust Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Team seeks to cultivate a culture of diversity, equity and inclusivity through hiring, awareness, education, and training opportunities for our team members, clients and communities. In practice, the Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Team will continually examine all areas of our organization, including employment practices; policies and procedures; training and education; communication; and workplace culture accountability, to ensure we are upholding anti-racist, diverse and inclusive values. It is important that our team members feel empowered to bring their authentic selves to work every day.
Our core values are the heart of our company and align with the practices noted.
- Diversity makes us better decision makers
- We support the maintenance of balance between family, work, and community service.
- Professionalism, respect, and dignity are fundamental principles by which we treat all others
Our team is represented by different backgrounds, ages, race, gender, personalities, traits, preferences, aspirations, and priorities.
As an organization we have worked diligently to celebrate individual differences and how to create an environment that maintains these differences while embracing the needs of our clients.
Each year, our President and Executive Vice President, Director of Human Resources, meet in small groups for Perspectives and Solutions. Team members are encouraged to ask questions about anything, and share input, or solutions, to enhance the culture at Greenleaf Trust. Our President also sends out an Annual Strategic Survey to everyone in the company. Only the President reads the results and then an overview is provided to the Executive Leadership Team for developing goals and strategy for the coming year. These opportunities allow team members to voice their personal opinions and to be heard by senior leadership.
Greenleaf Trust has partnered with ERACCE (Eliminating Racism & Creating/Celebrating Equity) to provide an introduction to systemic racism. New team members have the opportunity to attend the class offered by ERACCE, with over 85% of current team members already participating in one or more classes.
Greenleaf Trust is committed to racial diversity both within our company and in the field of finance.
In support of this initiative, the Greenleaf Trust scholarship was established at Western Michigan University in 1999.