“Those of you without diverse instincts will likely lose your job in the next decade.” said The Black List’s Franklin Leonard during a PromaxBDA The Conference 2017 keynote on Thursday in Los Angeles.

It was in 2005, while working at Leonardo DiCaprio’s production company that Leonard posed a question; “What if we gathered Hollywood’s best unproduced screenplays?”

A question and solution designed to give more stories a chance. That question turned into The Black List, an annual list curated by Hollywood peers, that turns scripts once forgotten into films that have generated $26 billion worldwide in its twelve-year existence.

But it was at dinner the other night, while preparing for The Conference 2017, that his session moderator, Lena Waithe of Netflix’s Master of None, had a slightly different question. One she let the crowd in on; “How can The Black List help to diversify the industry?”

“There’s two parts,” Franklin went on. “There’s the annual black list survey, which is just a survey of 500 to 600 executives responding about what they read. Second, the website functions differently in that you can encourage people to submit.”

And, with encouragement, the work has come in droves. Specifically, from women, Leonard says.

“We find that women generally don’t submit as many bad scripts as men do. Men will finish a script, and ask ‘where’s my million dollars?’ What we’ve tried to do is present the reality with as much data as possible. But also respond to it.”

Their response has come in partnerships and initiatives. “We partnered with Women in Film to do labs for TV writers who are women. We’ve made it our business to encourage writers of colors to submit work more aggressively.” said Franklin.

In many ways, the site operates as a mentor. And mentorship, for Lena Waithe, has meant everything. From a production assistant to writer, she’s been under the wings of Ava DuVernay and Gina Price Bythewood. But Waithe knows it’s not just about the opportunity, it’s about what you do with it.

“They gave me a job, but they didn’t hand me anything. If you drop me in the middle of jungle, I’ll come out with full belly and a fur coat. Do the work, play it, fall back and eventually you’ll be able to sit at the table.”

What both Franklin and Waithe began to agree on is that diversity is needed in the writers room. And as the time wound down, Franklin turned the table and asked Lena “What are your final thoughts?” To which Lena replied “Be better at hiring more people of color.”

Waithe doesn’t just give this advice, but lives it. “I can’t give people drive,” she said “but I can give them the tools to do what they want to do.”

As the Black List has proved, there are many ways to give chances to unknown voices.

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