In pursuit of an inclusive platform

As we build a new, direct artist-to-fan music platform, we want to ensure that all people and communities are supported. It’s important to us to build a welcoming environment for all.

We believe that inclusivity and diversity are essential for strong communities, and we aim to reflect this across all fronts. Resonate supports artists in all stages of their careers, and welcomes people of all genders, races, sexualities, backgrounds, physical appearances, abilities, religions and ages. We do not tolerate any form of harassment.

We’ve stated that we will work with anyone so long as they share our values, and this extends from respecting user privacy to respecting all people. By this we mean making a conscious effort to create inclusive environments, and explicitly refraining from working with or participating in organizations or events that do not align with these values.

This practice will extend across all of our activities, from the staff we hire to the artists we collaborate with. We believe in privacy by default and by design, and the same approach extends to diversity and inclusion – they shouldn’t be considered as an afterthought. Resonate is making a conscious effort to ensure that our #stream2own catalog is diverse.

It’s tricky territory but we want to ensure that we get this right. We don’t believe that using metrics or algorithms is the right way to go, as they can often be empty, meaningless marketing tactics. Furthermore, such strategies are often predicated on assuming people’s identities and backgrounds, and creating divisions, which is counterproductive and often hurtful. Context matters greatly, and building an inclusive space takes nuance and consideration, so we’re having many discussions on this topic. We’re asking questions to figure out how to best approach this. How can we effectively create a diverse environment? How can we create a meaningful impact, rather than just an image? As we’re just starting to build a new platform, we have a great opportunity to consider these questions from the start.

Resonate urges our partners to be similarly mindful, and asks them to appear only at events that are committed to inclusion, and actively pursue diversity in all their own activities. We believe that where possible, inclusion riders or similar strategies can and should be employed effectively. The Resonate team will make an effort to refrain from appearing on panels that we think lack a diverse range of inputs.

From ensuring that our operation is environmentally friendly (more info on this coming soon), to making our platform inclusive and diverse, we are actively building a sustainable, ethical operation. We look forward to working with more collaborators who share our values.

We want to make this process more transparent, and these conversations more open. If you have any suggestions on how we can best approach this, please get in touch: inclusive@resonate.is