Creating Safer Spaces: The Inclusive Guide's Mission to Promote Social Justice
Have you ever walked into a business and immediately felt uncomfortable or unwelcome because of your identity? Or found yourself in a new and unfamiliar place, unsure if you were safe? For Crystal Egli, these experiences are all too familiar. As a young Black woman, she found herself feeling anxious and afraid when she went hunting with a private instructor in a rural area.
This frightening incident prompted Crystal to reflect on the Green Book, a travel guide from the 1930s that helped Black travelers navigate racist and perilous roads. She wondered if there was a modern-day equivalent that could empower people from marginalized communities to travel with confidence and safety.
And with that thought, Inclusive Guide was born.
Led by Crystal Egli and Parker McMullen-Bushman, two Black female founders, Inclusive Journeys is a tech company working to support businesses in becoming more inclusive to all community members that they serve–and the Inclusive Guide is the company’s first product.
The Inclusive Guide is an online community that lists safe and welcoming spaces for anyone who faces discrimination. Similar to Yelp, users can submit business locations they feel safe in and then rate the business on a range of attributes such as courtesy of staff, ADA compliance, gender-neutral bathrooms, and more. The Inclusive Guide provides crowd-sourced entries that populate “inclusivity reviews'' for businesses and recreational spaces, allowing community members to find inclusive stores and spaces.
And while community members can benefit by finding inclusive stores from reading reviews, businesses that decide to partner with Inclusive Guide also benefit through the detailed reports. The mission is to create data-driven, economic incentives for businesses to be more inclusive and welcoming, resulting in safer spaces for people who regularly experience discrimination.
Unfortunately, it's been a difficult road for Crystal and Parker to attract investors. Black women founders receive just a tiny fraction of venture capital funding, and in 2021, Black women entrepreneurs received just 0.34% of the $147 billion in venture capital invested in U.S. startups. But despite the challenges, Parker is currently on a "Liberation Tour" spreading the word about the Inclusive Guide and educating businesses across the country about her efforts.
As the country and the world look for ways to address social justice issues, the Inclusive Guide is something actionable for both consumers and businesses to shift the economy toward inclusion. As Crystal Egli says,
"If you’re constantly experiencing discrimination just for existing in the world, why would you care about the world? We need our basic needs to be met first before we can start caring about others and giving back to the world at large.”
Watch the video above to learn more about the Inclusive Guide–the winner of GLP’s Sustainability Storytelling Competition in the “Environmental & Social Justice'' category–and join the mission to build a safer and more welcoming world for all.
About GLP’s Sustainability Storytelling Competition:
Born from its mission to promote sustainability through storytelling, GLP’s Sustainability Storytelling Competition (SSC) invited organizations of any size, from any industry, to submit their untold story of sustainability for a chance to win a custom video produced and distributed by GLP and global partners.
The inaugural competition had six categories that covered critical issues around climate and environment, community, and social justice: Sustainable & Regenerative Tourism, Sustainable Food, Environmental Justice, Conservation & Nature, Communities & Cultural Preservation, and Best of the Rest, to capture outstanding stories outside the main categories.
Top-tier panelists from diverse industries around the world reviewed submissions and identified winners based on story potential, greatest need, previous exposure, and positive impact.
Learn more here: glpfilms.com/ssc