It’s hard to believe it’s been less than two years since we launched Re: Stock. In that time, we’ve worked with three groups of talented filmmakers and creators to help bring authentic representation and diversity to our unlimited library of stock assets.

We launched Re: Stock with the goal of getting to 20% BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and people of color) representation within our footage library, and each of these artists have contributed to that number.

We’re proud to share that as of October 2021, we’ve exceeded that number and are now at 21% BIPOC representation within our footage in our library. We’ve also improved our search algorithms on-site to ensure more diverse representation is shown within the first few pages of search results for footage with people.

Our very first cohort of artists that we partnered with in October of 2020 were BIPOC cinematographers, directors and filmmakers who created footage that featured the layered experiences of BIPOC and the LGBTQI+ community. We worked with six filmmakers and one film collective to each produce a collection of footage for the Storyblocks library.

In celebration of this achievement, we wanted to give an update on some of the filmmakers from the launch of Re: Stock and where they are now. We’ll be posting interview updates with these filmmakers on our social channels where you can hear directly from the artists on what they’ve been up to since October of 2020.

We’re happy to say that we’ve continued our relationship with many of our artists, signing them on to continue creating content for our library on a regular basis. To help support their filmmaking endeavors, we’ve continued to support them with financial contributions along with access to our unlimited library, free of charge.

On top of that, Re: Stock has been recognized in top-tier publications such as AdAge, AdWeek, Forbes, Blavity, and The Root, along with receiving an honorable mention from the 2021 Webby Awards.

Re: Stock was chosen as a gold medal recipient for the inaugural Anthem Awards, which honors purpose and mission-driven work across organizations worldwide. We’ve also been lucky enough to speak at South by Southwest in 2021 and 2022 on behalf of the initiative.

Beyond external recognition, we’ve been blown away by the response from you. From direct member feedback to comments on social media, your enthusiasm for the initiative has energized all of us here at Storyblocks. You’ve told us that finding diverse content on Storyblocks is easier, there’s more variety to choose from, and the quality of footage produced from Re: Stock is up to par with the rest of our library.

We genuinely appreciate all of the feedback we’ve received about the campaign along with suggestions for other areas of representation for future collections. After all, your initial feedback about the diversity that was missing in our library is what helped bring Re: Stock to life.

The demand for diverse footage is only growing year after year, as we recognized in our Diversity in Video Report. Between 2019 and 2021, diversity searches on Storyblocks (including race, ethnicity, ability, age, body and LGBTQIA+ keywords) increased by 104%, while downloads of diverse content spiked by a massive 191%.

Seeing Re: Stock receive so much recognition has been incredibly fulfilling. We’re proud of the awareness that we’ve been able to bring to diversity within stock footage and the amazing work that each of the talented filmmakers we’ve worked with has contributed to our library.

So what’s next?
We knew that Re: Stock had life beyond the launch but had to decide where to focus our efforts while keeping the spirit of our original mission.

After many internal discussions, we’re excited to announce our new commitment to you–having 25% gender diversity within our stock audio contributors by early 2023.

Why gender diversity? Currently, an overwhelming 96% of our stock audio contributors identify as male. While 38% identify as BIPOC (a number we want to keep and improve on), there’s key representation missing from non-male contributors in our audio library.

Improving the gender diversity of audio contributors will be the next key area we focus on in our mission to widen how and who we source stock content from to provide the most authentic selection possible for you.

We’re excited to bring you along as we create a more equitable audio library and find talented new artists through this commitment.