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Our Values

Creating an Inclusive Culture: Designing a Mission-Aligned Office

Melissa Buckley, Handshake’s Office Experience Coordinator, shares her learnings around bringing Handshake’s mission to life through our office’s decor.

Here at Handshake HQ, we’re intentional about creating a space that reflects our mission, the inclusive culture we’re building, and the diverse students we’re honored to serve everyday in the Handshake community.

When we moved into our former office space in San Francisco's Mission District, our conference rooms were named after local bars in the neighborhood. While we appreciated the local connection to our community, we wanted to build our office, our culture, and our team intentionally with meaning, impact, and empathy. Part of creating an inclusive culture is ensuring your office reflects your mission and your values. To that end, we wanted to rename our conference rooms to honor, celebrate, and bring awareness to education trailblazers.

To raise awareness about each trailblazer, their work, their life, and their impact while nurturing a culture and office where people from all backgrounds feel a sense of belonging, I partnered with my colleagues on the Handshake Design team to create and display their impactful, inspirational stories.

We’re excited to nurture our inclusive and diverse culture with these daily reminders that honor individuals who have played a key role in what we’re working toward achieving: advancing access to education and opportunity for all.

Take a look at their inspirational stories below.

We’re building a diverse company united by our commitment to help students across the country launch meaningful careers. Interested in joining #TeamHandshake? Check out our open roles.

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