The past few months have been a difficult, but important time for change — for Black people, for victims of COVID-19, and for the gaming industry. Like many others, we’ve been watching and listening as stories of police brutality, racism, sexual violence, and more have been shared around the world. And like many others, we’d like to help.

For the past month, we’ve shifted our development focus toward building features that can advance the causes we’d like to champion right now — safety and equality for BIPOC, relief for patients with COVID-19, and support for victims of sexual violence. As engineers and designers, our individual voices are small, but we believe we can make a difference through the platforms we build and the experiences we create. 

Moving forward, we’ve created an action plan for feature development and internal policy — including strict rules for employee conduct and a commitment to prioritize hiring for underrepresented groups. We’d like to share our action plan below for transparency. 

Our Action Plan

Change starts with our Team

If we want our team to be a force for good, we have to start with our company, our actions, and our team culture.

• We are developing strict corporate policies around employee conduct, limiting scenarios where sexual misconduct may occur in the workplace or at company events. No system is infallible, but taking preventative action is effective.
• We are implementing required diversity, bias, and values training for all current and future employees. Additionally, all employees will have two paid days for personal volunteering or service-based activities.

Focus charitable action on relevant Causes

We can make the biggest impact by focusing our support on a select number of Causes, and using these Causes as a guiding light for our product design.

• We will designate three primary Causes that our company pledges to support, advance, and advocate for through our products and services. To start, we’re focusing on Safety by supporting RAINN, Racial Equality by supporting the NAACP, and Pandemic Relief by supporting the CDC Foundation,
• We also pledge to actively look for and maintain relationships with organizations (like the nonprofits listed above) that we’d like to directly support. We have so much to give, and so much to learn from these subject matter experts.
• Without disclosing details too early, the products that we’re developing will have a heavy focus on charitable donations, prioritizing the Causes (and the related charities) listed above. Our company will also directly provide a percentage of revenue in charitable donations each year.

Build a culture that celebrates Diversity‍

You can’t be what you can’t see. If we want to set a positive example for the industry, we need diverse perspectives and strong accountability on our team.

• We will look to diversify the Rally Cry board as quickly as possible. We can be a more effective ally to women and minority groups with direct representation guiding us from within.
• We have designated an internal Causes advocate to lead our action plan and hold our team directly accountable to our progress. This role will also be responsible for providing regular updates to our community for transparency and accountability

Directly mitigate and combat Toxicity

It’s our duty to make sure that the online communities and platforms we create are responsibly designed.

• Without disclosing details too early, the products we’re developing will have a no-tolerance policy for racism, sexual harassment, hate speech, or any other type of online toxicity. We’re committing to strict user conduct policies and even stricter reporting and punishment processes.

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Our efforts will take time, but we’re committed to making Rally Cry a company that can lead by example. As a team, all we can ask is that you hold us accountable to our promises, and that you give us the opportunity to let our actions speak louder than words.