Peloton to invest $100 million to fight racial injustice and inequity

Peloton announced this morning a new initiative that will see Peloton invest $100 million over the next four years to “fight racial injustice and inequity in our world and to promote health and wellbeing for all.”

In his note announcing the news, Peloton CEO John Foley stated that in “this pivotal time in history, I believe we have an enormous responsibility to do our part to combat systemic racism, and I am committed to ensuring that we use our resources, platform, and influence to change our society for the better — into a place where everyone can and will thrive.”

Peloton plans to focus this investment across 5 different areas:

  1. Giving all Peloton employees a $3/hour pay raise, brining the starting hourly rate to $19/hr (a $60 million investment).
  2. Invest $20 million in Learning + Development programs for Peloton team.
  3. Invest $20 million in third-party, nonprofit organizations dedicated to this cause (such as their recent $500,000 donation to NAACP).
  4. Making content more available to underserved communities (with a goal that 10% of classes be taken on Digital).
  5. “We commit to becoming a truly anti-racist organization and delivering on our robust, long term agenda of diversity + inclusion goals, beginning immediately with anti-racism learning opportunities at all levels of the company, a review and report of diversity data, a comprehensive inclusivity audit, and the implementation of bias-mitigating strategies in all key points of the employee lifecycle (hiring, reviews, promotion, and more).”

The full pledge and note from Peloton CEO John Foley can be found here, or included below:

The past few weeks have been an intense time of reflection and action-planning for me and our leadership team. Frankly, while I’ve always believed that Peloton is a force of good in the world, and that we’ve created an inclusive workplace and community for everyone, I’ve been humbled to realize what a privilege it has been for me to be satisfied with that belief.


To be clear, I haven’t been blind to injustices and inequality in our society. They’ve been plain to see my entire life, and these same calls for justice have been made for decades, centuries even. What has also been true for decades is that we must proactively reduce inequality, with a particular emphasis on reducing the persistent disparities experienced in our Black communities. This is the work of anti-racism, and the journey for Peloton begins NOW.


We shared this news with the Peloton team last week and would now like to share it with you: Effective immediately, we are announcing Peloton’s commitment to invest $100 million over the next four years to fight racial injustice and inequity in our world and to promote health and wellbeing for all. In this pivotal time in history, I believe we have an enormous responsibility to do our part to combat systemic racism, and I am committed to ensuring that we use our resources, platform, and influence to change our society for the better — into a place where everyone can and will thrive.


This kind of important work starts from the inside out, and our highest level of responsibility in this ongoing journey is to our own team members, especially those on our frontline who are the backbone of our organization. In order to do what is right for the world, we must ensure that, at all times, we are doing right by our team who works tirelessly to foster and execute on our Members first philosophy.


In an effort to make a real impact — internally at Peloton, within our community of 2.6 million Members and with the Black community at large — we’ll be investing and delivering broadly across five areas to fight racial injustice and inequity:

  1. We commit to addressing global economic inequity, starting with investing $60 million dollars to increase the hourly wages of our own workforce. Effective July 1st, all North American and European-based, non-commissioned hourly team members at Peloton are getting a $3 USD per hour pay increase. This change brings the starting hourly rate at Peloton to $19.00 USD.
  2. We commit to addressing our own job opportunity gap by investing $20 million in Learning + Development programs with a dedicated focus on our hourly teammates.
  3. We commit to continuing to support the fight against systemic racism at the institutional level, by investing $20 million in third-party, nonprofit organizations dedicated to this cause. This will continue the initiative we started last month with our $500,000 donation to the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund.
  4. We commit to doing our part to democratize access to fitness, and bring health and wellness to all communities. We will make our product and content more accessible to underserved communities (via our Digital and Connected Fitness platforms). In four years, it is our goal that at least 10% of our classes are streamed to and taken by members of these communities.
  5. We commit to becoming a truly anti-racist organization and delivering on our robust, long term agenda of diversity + inclusion goals, beginning immediately with anti-racism learning opportunities at all levels of the company, a review and report of diversity data, a comprehensive inclusivity audit, and the implementation of bias-mitigating strategies in all key points of the employee lifecycle (hiring, reviews, promotion, and more). We have a lot to do here, and this is our shared responsibility.

“Together We Go Far” means that we are greater than the sum of our parts, stronger collectively when each one of us is at our best. I’m looking forward to working alongside all of you to create a world we are proud of — a world that is equitable, kind and a truly inclusive place for all.


It’s time to get started.


John


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Chris Lewis
Chris Lewis is the creator & founder of Pelo Buddy. He purchased his Peloton in 2018, and uses all the different devices: Peloton Bike, Tread, Row, and Guide. He has been involved in the fitness industry for more than a decade - previously co-founding the websites Mud Run Guide & Ninja Guide. You can find him on the leaderboard at #PeloBuddy.

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