YOR is a liberatory, anti-racist organization, encouraging the whole person to show up at work. The team has a supervision structure to bolster support for staff and youth development. YOR maintains a high standard of pay, offering salaries in the top 25% of their sector; with a total benefits package including, parental leave; mental wellness stipends; health and wellness support; access to therapy for secondary trauma; and arts and culture benefits. For YOR, quality pay and competitive benefits are critical to its EDIA efforts, allowing YOR to attract and retain a diverse team. YOR has developed a company culture that exemplifies effective and innovative approaches to supporting the next generation of leaders through culturally, emotionally, socially and economically responsive recruitment, training and retention practices.
As such, YOR hires, serves, and supports people who have been historically marginalized in the creative industry, which includes BIPOC, LGBTQAI+, people with seen and unseen disabilities, and women of all races and ethnicities -- as all women are historically marginalized in music and entertainment. YOR also recruits diverse Board members, with new recruitment focused on diverse representation. This has enabled YOR to authentically build a diverse, equitable and inclusive team who come from historically-marginalized backgrounds.
YOR acknowledges that to move toward racial equity, programs, organizations, and individuals must strive to address systems change across all sectors. YOR programs support the social repositioning of youth of color through access to mentors, creative coaches, quality programming and a space for community (re)building. YOR emphasizes the voice and experience of youth in order to support young people as they develop their abilities to perceive and understand social, political and economic oppression and to deal with this understanding constructively.