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LiveWorkPlay and the 50-30 Challenge: Part 3 of 3


This post is the final in our three part series on LiveWorkPlay and the 50-30 Challenge. If you have landed on this post first, please consider reading Part One and Part Two!

The 50 – 30 Challenge is an initiative between the Government of Canada, Canadian businesses, and diversity organizations. At the time of publishing this post, there were more than 2,450 participating organizations, and more are signing up every day! LiveWorkPlay is proud to be just one of the members of that growing list.

The goal is to challenge Canadian organizations to increase the representation and inclusion of diverse groups within their workplaces, while highlighting the benefits of giving all Canadians a seat at the table.

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

  • Gender parity (50% women and/or non-binary people) on Canadian boards and/or in senior management
  • Significant representation (30%) on Canadian boards and/or senior management of members of other equity-deserving groups, including those who identify as Racialized, Black, and/or People of colour (“Visible Minorities”), people with disabilities (including invisible and episodic disabilities), 2SLGBTQ+ and/or gender and sexually diverse individuals, and Aboriginal and/or Indigenous Peoples.

How does LiveWorkPlay stand up to the 50-30 Challenge goals?

The 50-30 Challenge encourages organizations to aim for 50% gender parity for both senior leadership and board of directors. As of June 2023, 83% of LiveWorkPlay’s senior leadership team are women and 71% of LiveWorkPlay’s board of directors are women and/or gender diverse individuals. One year later in June 2024, we continue to see strong gender parity with 83% of LiveWorkPlay’s senior leadership team indentifying as women and 80% of LiveWorkPlay’s board of directors are women and/or gender diverse. 

The second goal of the 50-30 Challenge is to have 30% representation of other equity deserving groups on Canadian boards and senior leadership teams. Equity deserving groups refers to people who identify as Racialized, Black, People of Colour, People with Disabilities, 2SLGBTS+, Gender and Sexually Diverse People, and First Nations, Metis, and Inuit.  

In June 2023, 33% of LiveWorkPlay’s senior leadership team and 57% of LiveWorkPlay’s board identified as being part of an equity deserving group. In June 2024, 33% of LiveWorkPlay’s senior leadership team and 71% of LiveWorkPlay’s board identified as being part of an equity deserving group.  

As a charitable organization with a mission, vision, and values that are all about helping our community and world be more welcoming and inclusive, it is not suprising that LiveWorkPlay was exceededing several goals of the 50-30 Challenge prior to joining. This does not mean we do not have room for significant improvement. We have a culture of continuous improvement, and that includes efforts related to DEI, some of which we documented in our Part Two blog along with information about activities with The Women’s Economic Council (WEC), one of five 50-30 Challenge ecosystem partners.

In recent month, in addition to these formal DEI engagements alongside other organizations, we have also challenged ourselves with internal conversations, including self-facilitated conversations and reflections about difficult conversations, as well as a facilitated conversation within the board and staff teams that included increased understanding about privilege; and practicing skills related to cooperative reasoning and conditional trust, by having productive conversations about diversity, equity, and inclusion.