Supplier Diversity Impact Award Announced
Penn Procurement Services is happy to announce the winner of the 2024 Supplier Diversity Impact Award: Carol Lerner. The Supplier Diversity Impact Award celebrates Penn faculty or staff who have made outstanding contributions in supplier diversity and inclusion. Carol’s work to be intentionally inclusive in WXPN’s Black Opry Residency is what set her apart as this year’s Impact Award recipient.
The Black Opry Residency was a PEW-funded project of WXPN that was created to empower Black Country, Folk and Americana artists grow dependable careers and expand their visibility to a wider audience. The framework of this project was an in-depth artist collaboration in residence at Penn in March of 2023. This initiative both promoted the ideals of inclusion and welcomed our community to learn more about the significant contributions that Black musicians have made to Country, Folk, and Americana music.
Carol Lerner was a part of the team that worked on the application to secure the PEW grant that enabled the initiative to go forward. During the implementation stages of the project, Carol discovered ways that WXPN could expand the initiative to uplift those who contributed to operations behind the scenes. Carol advocated for the focus of the procurement for this project to be on Black-owned and West Philadelphia suppliers. Carol then helped the WXPN staff identify key partners who fulfilled those requirements, which had a significant impact on the suppliers who were chosen.
Throughout the engagement 18 different individuals and businesses were onboarded, 5 Minority and Small owned businesses were utilized, and as a result of this initiative WXPN developed a list of diversely owned businesses to source from on future projects in efforts to continuously be inclusive in their procurement.
