50-30 Initiative

The 50-30 Challenge:

The 50 – 30 Challenge asks that organizations aspire to two goals:

  1. Gender parity (“50%”) on Canadian board(s) and senior management; and
  2. Significant representation (“30%”) on Canadian board(s) and senior management of other under-represented groups, including racialized persons, people living with disabilities (including invisible and episodic disabilities) and members of the LGBTQ2 community. The program and participants recognize that First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples as founding peoples of Canada are under-represented in positions of economic influence and leadership.

Canada is home to a variety of industries and sectors. To broaden participation and to address their unique needs, the Challenge is offered in three distinct streams:

  • Large corporations
  • Small and medium-sized enterprises (SME)
  • Post-secondary institutions, not-for-profits and charities

The streams allow participating organizations to strive to achieve their 50 – 30 goals in a way that best suits and reflects their needs and acknowledges the variety of sizes and structures of organizations, including those without boards of directors or senior management teams.

For more information about benefits, participation, partners and participants, please follow the below link:

https://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/icgc.nsf/eng/07706.html

How to participate

Organizations, not-for-profits and other institutions that are interested in the 50 – 30 Challenge can sign up by filling in the 50-30 Challenge form.

If you have any additional concerns or questions, you can contact us at [email protected].

The benefits

Diversity in the workplace makes good business sense. Organizations that are more diverse:

  • are more likely to outperform their peers
  • are twice as likely to meet or exceed financial targets
  • are eight times more likely to achieve better business outcomes
  • generate and foster fresh insights, new ideas and creative solutions
  • draw on the full talents of their people

Effective diversity and inclusion strategies can help organizations advance their goals. Many organizations have shown that leveraging diversity and inclusion can:

  1. Help them attract the best and the brightest to broaden the talent pool and help overcome skill gaps in a rapidly transforming and increasingly volatile economy.
  2. Gain access to more diverse markets. According to the Harvard Business Review, diverse companies are 70% more likely to capture new markets than organizations that do not actively recruit and support talent from under-represented groups.
  3. Increases employee satisfaction and engagement fostering greater loyalty, retention, productivity, and overall performance. A 2018 McKinsey Report found that companies that have higher degrees of racially and ethnically diverse employees have a 33% performance advantage over companies relying on a “culture fit” that tends to trend white and monocultural.
  4. Promote innovation by bringing multiple perspectives and experiences to bear on complex problems. Indeed a 2018 Boston Consulting Group study found that companies that have more diverse management teams have 19% higher revenue due to innovation.
  5. Reduce risk, given the massive reputational damage that missteps on diversity and inclusion can produce.

Organizations participating in the 50 – 30 Challenge will be offered resources to further support them in the program and help them determine their best pathway forward, such as:

  • having access to the Digital Toolkit—with tailored and industry-specific resources and advice
  • gaining connections to partners who specialize in the recruitment of diverse employees
  • attending events where partners come together to recognize corporate leaders who have championed diversity and inclusion by putting it into practice in their own organizations
  • receiving incentives in government program criteria
  • becoming a Corporate Diversity Honour Roll Member, which will grant access to government programs, supports, resources and social media promotion

Partners and participants

For a list of organizations that have signed on to the 50 – 30 Challenge, please visit 50 – 30 Challenge: Participating organizations.

The Government of Canada has been working with a number of organizations to develop the 50 – 30 Challenge.

Here is a list of Challenge partners, in alphabetical order:

Related links