Our acknowledgments
As a historically majority white-led firm, Mithun acknowledges the power and choice afforded our organization in an environment influenced by centuries of structural racism and other forms of discrimination. Mithun acknowledges our current responsibility to recognize and ameliorate the impacts of injustice as they affect our office, projects, design processes and external relationships.
We acknowledge that land and its development have been used as powerful tools to perpetuate second-class citizenship, and there is deep inequity and unrecognized trauma created by the built environment as it is currently designed.
Our CommitmentS
We commit to continually improve the firm’s collective capacity to reduce harm caused by how we work with each other and our collaborators, and by our participation in larger social, cultural and ecological systems. Mithun’s Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (JEDI) Working Group serves as both a leadership group and a resource for others across the firm to advance the list of priorities below. These priorities span a range of implementation timelines and scales of impact, from small, actionable changes in workplace practices to significant, long-range shifts in our firm’s mission and culture.
We commit to ongoing and effective actions to improve the retention and recruitment of team members with a broad range of skills, perspectives and backgrounds; address any harmful impact of our integrated design work; enable staff to benefit from justice-oriented education and training; and provide strategic support of our community partners. We are a signatory to the NOMA NW Call to Action and the SoCal NOMA DEI Challenge. We track and publicly share our progress on key social equity metrics via the ILFI JUST label.
Our Work in Progress
Our acknowledgments and commitments are grounded in an understanding that justice and equity work is never finished. We will continue to be open to learning, critical of our impacts, engage in difficult conversation, practice deep listening, and learn from both current and historical practices in order to move forward meaningfully.
Our ongoing efforts are divided into three main categories; detailed information about the goals in each category can be found below. There is so much important work still ahead!
This page will be updated as we continue our journey.
Create resources and accountability to integrate JEDI + JUST into project workflow
Ensure that photography, renderings, social media, publications and marketing collateral reflect the diversity of populations we serve or aspire to serve
Ensure that professional resources such as materials and practice libraries are aligned with JEDI
Prioritize belonging and inclusion for all as fundamental to how we operate our firm
Create an inclusive workplace culture for people of all ages, abilities and identities including race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religion, culture and national origin
Review and expand recruiting, hiring, mentorship, retention, training and professional development programs and processes to increase opportunities for qualified individuals of all backgrounds, including those who are underrepresented in our field
Advance access, inclusion and equity in the design profession by building relationships with JEDI-aligned professional collaborators
Proactively pursue projects that positively impact BIPOC communities and explicitly align with JEDI values
Track and increase JEDI-aligned philanthropy and pro-bono work
Track and increase JEDI-aligned advocacy and policy engagement
