In response to the longstanding need for more inclusivity and diversity within the music industry, London Music Masters and consulting firm AlixPartners have co-developed I’M IN, the world’s first ever diversity and inclusion audit tool for the music industry.

I’M IN, the Inclusive Music Index, provides an opportunity for arts organisations to enable entities to see themselves more clearly from a diversity and inclusion perspective through a set of challenging, provocative questions.

The audit tool requires organisations to self-assess by answering more than 100 questions themed around ten core elements ranging from recruitment to organisational culture. This nuanced approach shines a light on a myriad of structural and interconnected aspects, allowing organisations to re-evaluate and correct their practices and policies in terms of inclusion and understanding.

The tool requires organisations to upload evidence to validate self-reporting before an assessment is carried out by London Music Masters supported by diversity and inclusion specialists from a range of music and non-music businesses. These assessors review the submission and provide music organisations with a deep report on their results, and a roadmap for progression.

The evidence required to support high self-assessment scores can take any form, from documents displaying diversity and inclusion principles embedded in strategic planning to job descriptions indicative of inclusive recruitment and retention strategies.

How to access

London Music Masters is making the audit free for 30 music organisations, from all varieties and backgrounds, in a committed effort to get as many facets of the industry involved in effecting long-lasting change.

The 30 music organisations who sign up for I’M IN will get three of the ten strands free. These strands are Motivation, Leadership and Organisational Culture.

Music organisations will be able to sign up to be one of the free 30 users at londonmusicmasters.org/im-in. Applications are open from 6^th July – 17^th July.

London Music Masters will announce the I’M IN cohort on 24^th July. The 30 selected users will then be asked to submit their responses to the free strands by 17^th August, before they will receive their feedback from specialists by 1^st October.

LMM’s Executive Director Rob Adediran said: “The music sector has been grappling with diversity and inclusion for decades, and largely failing. Now for the first time, we have come together with colleagues from many different music organisations to create a solution that acknowledges the complexities surrounding the diversity debate and provides system-level thinking to a systemic problem. This is not a new initiative that can be bolted onto existing structures, this is about organisational change.”