Belonging Is Part of What We Make
Being tolerated is not the same as being welcome. Why belonging is part of everything Boston Made builds, and the six promises we hold ourselves to.
Dear Sir or Madam,
When Boston Made started in 2019, it was a handful of well-made things for dogs. Today it is a family of brands, stories, apps and tools for the city that inspired it. A lot has changed since then. One thing hasn’t: I want every person who finds us to feel like they belong here.
Belonging is bigger than being let in
Being tolerated is not the same as being welcome. You can tell the difference the second you walk into a room. Somebody looks up, learns your name, saves you a seat. That feeling is what I want every Boston Made site, product and story to give people, whether they found us through a dog collar, a Newsroom story, a game in the Arcade or a website we built for their business.
Why it matters to a Boston company
Boston has never been just one kind of person. It has been built, rebuilt and argued over by people who came from everywhere, loved whoever they loved and believed whatever they believed. A company that carries the city’s name should look like the city, and should make room for all of it.
Six promises, one for every color
This week we published a new Inclusion page. It lays out six promises we hold ourselves to across the whole Boston Made family:
- Come as you are. Who you are, who you love, where you come from, how you worship or don’t, what you earn and how you move through the world.
- Built for every body. Readable type, strong contrast, keyboard navigation and screen readers, and a habit of fixing what we miss.
- Your inbox, your call. Our marketing is opt-in only, and one click is always enough to stop.
- Room at the table. Stories from every neighborhood and every kind of Bostonian.
- Respect, always. Hate and harassment have no place in the spaces we run.
- Tell us when we miss. If something made you feel shut out, we want to hear it and make it right.
Why all the color
You will notice the new page is bright. Red, orange, yellow, green, blue and violet, with pink, light blue, brown, black and white woven in. That is on purpose. Every color has a job on that page, the same way every person has a place in this family. Belonging should feel like a celebration, not a disclaimer.
Tell us when we get it wrong
We will not get all of this right the first time. If something on a Boston Made site made you feel shut out, tell us. A real person reads it, and we will work to fix it.
There is a seat for you here. I am glad you are in it.
Nate
Nathan Strickland, Founder, Boston Made
