Diversity Genius

What is Diversity Genius?

An impressive 305 production companies have signed up to the CDN Diversity Pledge. To help existing signatories and future ones drive the pledge forward in their organisations, the CDN has launched a top tips toolkit, Diversity Genius.

The Diversity Genius builds on the work of the CDN Diversity Pledge, offering helpful aide memoires, suggested actions to help production companies with the constituent actions within the Pledge, and comprehensive lists of talent and training schemes from which indies can look to recruit diverse up-and-coming talent.

The Diversity Genius guide urges production companies to think of diversity in much more broader terms than just ethnicity, asking them to also consider disability, sexuality, age, gender and class when casting or crewing up.

The toolkit encourages monitoring, and emphasises how accurate data is one of the most powerful tools in helping address diversity in the industry. Among the suggested actions for production companies are; participation in the Skillset census, filling out broadcasters' production monitoring forms, as well as developing their own in-house monitoring forms to track progress internally. Information gathered through monitoring of this kind can build on and strengthen the effectiveness of the CDN Diversity Pledge and help to provide a more comprehensive picture of the diversity within the production sector.