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The Diversity Plan must detail the manner in which the Applicant proposes to achieve its goals to ensure employment of minorities that represent the State of Illinois rather than merely to assure nondiscrimination. The Applicant must also document that it made “good faith efforts” in attempting to achieve a racially diverse crew.

The applicant must agree to track his/her progress in reaching the State’s diversity goals by using the "Diversity Plan Tracking Sheet" provided by the IFO.

Diversity Plan Tracking Sheet

The applicant must provide the Illinois Film Office (IFO) with gender and ethnicity of the Illinois crew. After the shoot, the Film Office will review the final diversity numbers of the production's Illinois crew. Women and racial minorities are assessed separately. If good-faith-efforts are shown, IFO will proceed with finalization of the tax credit. This is more than collecting tracking sheets. The production office must provide documentation of efforts made to hire a diverse crew. This can include e-mail confirmations to those people contacted but not hired. A list of names, dates and times of people that were contacted for employment may be considered as well. The IFO will contact those individuals to verify.



If the production has low racial minorities and/or low females on crew, it may be denied. These are not vendor or talent hires, these are crew and production office hires. A production will have 30 days to prove "good-faith-efforts" in hiring practices, if they are denied based on diversity. Caucasian women and racial minorities are assessed separately. If the production can prove the efforts were made, the credit will then be approved. If the production fails to show "good-faith-efforts" were made a final denial determination will be made.