In the summer of 2020, Chloe Bowman joined the Montanya crew as our first JEDI (Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion) Coordinator. The role came about after Chloe emerged as a leader in the local JEDI movement. She rocketed into the spotlight after hosting a rally in Crested Butte to celebrate Black joy and culture as well as protest racial disparities in the aftermath of the police killing of unarmed Black man George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

As many members of the local community sought to understand and take action on systemic racism in Crested Butte, Chloe responded to the need for education and activism by founding the nonprofit Melanin Mountain Project to keep local conversations alive after the protests quieted. Karen, our owner & founder, connected with Chloe to co-host a COVID-safe outdoor fundraising event for MMP. This began a very exciting partnership that led to Chloe’s JEDI Coordinator position, bringing her expertise in JEDI work inside Montanya Distillers, and Karen providing mentorship around establishing a nonprofit. Here, they both share how the partnership came to be, why it’s important for Montanya to support Chloe’s work in the community and in the company, and some of the efforts that are underway:

How did this partnership come about?

Chloe: It was really a meeting of the minds. Karen was discussing the need for diversity and inclusion and what a B Corp is and what Montanya Distillers is—what she's passionate about and wanted to accomplish—which aligned with everything that I was doing. We sat down for a few meetings and brunches, and it was awesome. We discussed taking issues to town council members and being more engaged and more active with community work together. When Karen approached me about bringing that work to Montanya specifically, I was really excited.

Karen: Chloe was doing the work that I wanted everybody in Crested Butte to be doing, and she was doing it so effectively. She has this incredible natural talent and this way of speaking about white privilege that doesn't make people feel defensive. I also knew Chloe was working full time as a preschool teacher, and had this huge job as a local organizer. I thought, when does she sleep? Twice Chloe said, "Hey, I’m thinking about dropping one of my days at the preschool." I had the sense that was going to make it hard for her to do everything that she wanted to do and make a living. If we could pick up that day at Montanya, it might make her better able to focus on her activism.

Chloe: I was definitely spread really thin. We live in a predominantly white community, and I had just put myself under the spotlight as the person, in the middle of a pandemic and in the middle of everybody asking, "What can we do?" I was literally being pulled from all ends and my bucket was empty. It was really wonderful for Karen to reach out like that.

Chloe, how would you describe the work that you’re doing in the community?

Chloe: The work is a baseline of education—it's a baseline of understanding about equity and equality. There's a lot of push back in this valley because, I think, being a vacation destination, people here choose to remove themselves from these kinds of issues.

Getting people to see the community that is unseen here is a real uphill battle. I'm trying to engage people with empathy, and educate them on a need and a benefit. There's this assumption with people of color that activism is this charitable movement. But people of color have money. They can come and spend their money here instead of elsewhere. We needed to ask why they were not coming more often to live and work here.

So it’s doing things like getting Elk Avenue painted with a Black Lives Matter mural and having people see, "Oh, sales were not affected within the community by the mural. It is actually better in our community now that we have more diverse crowds coming here."

I'm also working on workshops and Equity Labs to arm teachers and community leaders that work with young people—to help the people of color that live here, the Latinx community to be seen, to be heard and valued and validated in their living experience in our valley.

Why was it important to support this work through a formal position and not just donations?

Karen: One of the big performative things that companies in America do is say, "Here's our token Diversity Coordinator." Then they give them really uninteresting things to do. That is what I wanted to avoid. I also didn’t want Montanya to take credit for the good work that Chloe was already doing. She was on her path and her path was going to be amazing no matter what.

It was more about how can we achieve a goal together? I have felt strongly that this community is too white and can be unwelcoming to people of color, and didn't even understand the ways in which it wasn't welcoming. Chloe was already working on important efforts around that. This is our way of investing in the work.

Chloe: In a more meaningful way, too. Karen once said that this approach was better than writing a check, and in so many ways it is. Without it, I would be lost in the structural and foundational ways of creating a non-profit and having it be engaging and effective—even having the equipment to be at the table with the right people is important.

Karen: We could surround Chloe with high speed internet, which can be a challenge in the valley, and better computer equipment, plus office space and professional support. We have all that at Montanya already, and that could give her the foundation she needed to focus on the work.

And what does JEDI work look like inside of Montanya?

Chloe: Montanya is very specific about not having JEDI work be about checking boxes to show diversity, but making the workplace equitable and supporting people of color—of not saying you need to be the most qualified to even enter. If we keep on working and perfecting what it is to have a JEDI model and baseline here, I feel it'll have a ripple effect as Montanya expands.

Karen: Every single day, I ask myself, is this policy that we're creating for our employees fair and equitable and support all of our staff? Sometimes these decisions are interpreted differently by employees of diverse backgrounds. A Black employee thought a Covid policy might have been applied to them differently because they are Black when it was the circumstances of a potential Covid exposure. Another Black employee was flabbergasted to receive a raise after getting his forklift certification.

It made me realize that we need to communicate better and can’t just give opportunities to people who ask for them. The white community is trained from birth to believe they have a right to ask for what they want. The BIPOC community can be trained to run a little under the radar and not ask because you might get more attention than you want.

That's the internal work. I can't always see how a workplace might make someone feel uncomfortable, or unwelcome, or like they might not be getting a fair shake. I don’t have the same lived experience. When I do see it, that’s a moment to realize we could have done a better job.

The question is how can we create programs inside Montanya that help our community of employees to all equally have the opportunity to buy a house here, or equally have the opportunity to send their kids to college or have retirement funding? And when we succeed, how can we inspire other local businesses to do more too?

Chloe: That is the definition of equity, right? That's something we're passionate about because you don't see that in this world. It's easy to justify people's inequity by saying, "Oh, they didn't try hard enough, they didn't pull up their bootstraps." We're getting rid of that horrible saying, and saying everybody's at the same level. They can thrive or choose not to, but this is the entry level and opportunity is going to be same for everyone here.

What is the value of JEDI work, to companies and their employees?

Karen: One thing that makes teams of people more competitive and creative and have better outcomes is having a diverse team. As a company, we can't just say, “Okay, let's have some people of color on our staff or have more diversity.” We have to consider, how are we actually involving them in the work of the company, making the company better, thinking about how we do our process better? We also have to make sure they are paid equally and have the same opportunities for leadership.

At the same time, my philosophy is that we have to become a place where people get additional qualifications. For example, I want Chloe to feel like working with Montanya has given her corporate JEDI work as a formal qualification. It's a good two-way street. We needed JEDI work and this gives Chloe more qualifications on her resumé to take to whatever she does next. (Although we hope she’ll be with us for a long time!)

What benefits have you seen from the JEDI work so far?

Chloe: I see a lot of moving pieces of BIPOC people being heard, acknowledged, validated, and valued in the community and at Montanya. That's the coolest thing ever. To know that Montanya and other businesses have spoken out about supporting Black Lives Matter, just from the first day of my rally, I'm now super proud to go to those places and recommend them. We've raised the bar in being open with values and letting people come here and feel safe. That's amazing.