Q4 2020 External DEI Report

This inaugural EverQuote annual diversity, equity and inclusion report is dedicated to our late co-founder and CEO, Seth Birnbaum.  Seth was a vocal ally, participant, and leader in the DEI space since EverQuote was founded.  Well known for his relentless passion for driving EverQuote to become a leading destination for insurance in the US, he was equally committed to improving representation across EverQuote for the betterment of our employees and customers.  We remain committed to continuing the initiatives he helped start and to fulfilling our DEI mission as a way of ensuring that his legacy lives on at EverQuote for years to come.

• Darryl Auguste, EVP Strategic Projects and EverQuote Board Member

Purpose of this Report

The EverQuote annual diversity, equity and inclusion report is designed to provide our employees, community and industry a transparent view into the makeup of our organization and the efforts we are undertaking to make our organization more diverse, equitable and inclusive.

This report is both the culmination of years of behind-the-scenes work to make EverQuote a diverse and inclusive organization and a public step in what we anticipate to be a rewarding but challenging journey to being a leader in diversity, equity and inclusion. DEI has been part of EverQuote’s story from day one, but the events of this year have pushed us to be more vocal, more transparent and more aggressive in our efforts.

Since EverQuote’s founding, our employees have volunteered their time, energy and voices to both formal and informal diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. We are thrilled to publicly recognize the work and progress to date, as well as publicly commit to deepening our investments through hiring a dedicated Head of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, increasing our funding for initiatives designed to hire, develop and retain employees from underrepresented groups, and supporting anti-racism efforts.

As a company, we pride ourselves on our tenacity - we gravitate toward big, ambitious goals that push us out of our comfort zone. We also pride ourselves on our ability to prioritize and focus on the initiatives that will have the greatest impact. Our commitment to building a diverse, equitable and inclusive organization falls squarely in the intersection of those two tenets of the EverQuote culture. The mission we are publicly committing to is ambitious, but it is also vitally important to the ongoing success of our organization, our industry and our communities.

Our Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Mission

We strive to create a welcoming community and safe environment where ALL employees can contribute, grow and lead. We aspire to “build it right the first time” by creating people policies, structures and Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) that are designed from the outset to ensure that our employee population resembles the communities in which we work and that all employees have both a seat at the table and a voice in the room.

Where We Stand Today

While we were able to increase the percentage of women in our total employee population from 25% to 36% in 2020, we were not able to make progress on our objective of achieving racial and ethnic diversity that more closely resembles the communities in which we work. We firmly believe in the adage that “you can’t improve what you can’t measure,” so in 2020 we launched demographic dashboards that make this data visible and accessible to our leaders and hiring managers.

The two following charts reflect the demographic composition of our full-time U.S. employee population by quarter from Q4 2018 to Q4 2020. Q4 2020 data reflects the current state as of October 1, 2020. Note that we will be expanding our gender identity options in 2021.

The following charts reflect the demographic composition by functional area of our full-time U.S. employee population as of October 1, 2020.

Ongoing Initiatives

One of our early initiatives to support diversity, equity and inclusion was the creation of our Employee Resource Groups (ERGs), all of which were organically employee launched and led. In the past year, we added more structure to our ERG program so that they now receive support and funding from the organization, including an executive sponsor from the senior leadership team and a quarterly budget. Today, these groups include EverBlack, EverQueer, Women’s Forum, Liftinos (Hispanic/Latino employees), EverGreen (environmentally focused initiatives), and EverNation (international employees). Philanthropy and allyship are incorporated into the charters for all of ERGs.

In late 2019, we launched our first Diversity, Equity and Inclusion P1 and dedicated 50% of one of our Analytics leader’s time to DEI. Through this initiative, we experimented with mechanisms for increasing the diversity of our candidate pipeline and reducing bias in our interview process, including blind resume screening, blind coding interviews and partnerships with the National Society of Black Engineers and She+ Geeks Out. In 2020, we piloted an internal career development program for women and BIPOC employees to ensure that we are building a diverse internal leadership pipeline. We also evolved our internship program to more intentionally and strategically attract underrepresented candidates, resulting in a 2020 internship class that was 72% women, 7% Hispanic/Latinx and 14% Black/African American.

* P1 is the term we use for experimental strategic initiatives

In 2020, as a result of the continuing violence against Black people across America and renewed call for the end of police brutality, EverQuote publicly committed to supporting our Black employees, standing up against racism, violence and police brutality, and opening the door for dialogue to ensure we are doing our part to be an agent for change. EverBlack has taken a lead in fostering these conversations, holding an incredibly moving company-wide town hall to discuss the systemic racism Black Americans face. Building on this town hall, the company committed to matching individual contributions donated to causes related to ending racism. We're proud to say that we as a company, as individuals and as a community donated $200,000 to organizations promoting racial equality and fighting police brutality. But this is only the beginning for us; we will continue to listen, support, and fight racial inequality within our walls and in our broader communities.

Next Steps

We are thrilled to announce that we have hired Brandon Washington as our SVP of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and are excited to work with Brandon to continue to refine our DEI strategy, objectives and key results. Brandon joins us from the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill where he served as the Associate Vice Chancellor, Equal Opportunity and Compliance.  Previously, he was the Chief Diversity Officer at Florida Gulf Coast University and a Civil Rights Attorney & Investigator for the US Dept. of Education. He brings a tremendous amount of experience and skill to our executive team in the DEI domain and beyond.

We are indebted to the individuals who have led our past and ongoing DEI initiatives and will continue to engage this powerful EQ community in this work. With the creation of a dedicated DEI team, the intention is not to shift accountability away from our broader team - our CEO Jayme Mendal is ultimately accountable for achieving our DEI objectives and for holding all EverQuote leaders accountable. But as we reach 500 employees, we recognize the need to hire a dedicated leadership with the bandwidth, mandate and expertise to take our efforts to the next level.

In 2021, we are committed to continuing our work to:

• Invest in anti-racism and anti-homophobia work
• Develop programs to attract, develop and retain employees from underrepresented groups, including launching DEI initiatives in our India and Northern Ireland offices
• Increase the diversity of our senior leadership to more closely resemble the communities in which we work. We will seek to achieve this objective not by preferences or quotas but by broadening our recruiting methods and our recruiting sources, and by developing a diverse group of existing, qualified employees for potential promotion to leadership positions.  

We will be publishing this report on an annual basis to transparently update our community on our progress and hold ourselves publicly accountable to our commitments.