PHOTOS COURTESY OF TECHSOUP (LEFT) AND MOTHERCODERS (RIGHT)
philanthropic objectives. That is the secret sauce,”
Masisak says.
Masisak points out that technology is not itself
the end goal. The goal, rather, is to connect people
to the resources they need to help citizens at
the local community level. “There’s much about
nonprofit work that is hyperlocal,” she says. “[For
example], if you’re an elderly person, and you need
to go somewhere for a service, you need it to be
convenient and right in your neighborhood. So, I
think hyperlocal really matters.”
That’s why TechSoup has historically served the
smallest organizations. “We have a value around inclusivity,
and we don’t want to leave organizations
behind,” Masisak says.
One of these small organizations is MotherCoders,
a nonprofit located in the San Francisco Bay
Area and New York City.
CODE LIKE A MOTHER
Tina Lee was a long-time contributor to the
technology industry before giving birth to her
second daughter. Faced with the reality of working
full-time while parenting two children, she saw a
need for helping moms keep up with fast-paced
market changes in tech. There weren’t any tech
meetups or skills classes designed to help women
with children stay current, let alone get ahead. So
she founded MotherCoders, a training program to
help moms jump-start their careers in tech.
“Our mission is to grow and diversify the tech
talent pool by activating mothers with college
degrees and work experience who are ready to
contribute,” says Lee.
Lee saw firsthand mothers wanting to break into
the tech industry because they understood that’s
where the career advancement opportunities are
and where they could earn enough money to support
their families. “In a lot of instances, childcare for one
kid costs more than rent and college tuition,” Lee
says. “So we had a lot of moms who looked at technology
and said, ‘Yes, I want a piece of it.’ But they
didn’t know how to access the industry.”
To date, MotherCoders has trained more than
300 moms through events, workshops, and a signature
nine-week technical training program. The tech
training program, which offers onsite childcare, is
an immersive learning experience that helps students
gain the skills, knowledge, and professional
network needed to move into careers in tech. Each
training program wraps with a visit to a tech company—host
companies have included Airbnb and
Lyft—to learn the inner workings of tech teams.
Some of the women who come to MotherCoders
are already working full-time, but want to transition
into a more technical role. Others have stepped
out of the workforce and want to reenter in tech.
And some are entrepreneurs who have an idea for
a tech-involved business and need foundational
knowledge to take the next step.
MotherCoders counts on TechSoup for the
technology that makes it possible for the organization
to do its work, including accounting
and cybersecurity software, laptops, and other
hardware that help streamline operations for its
distributed team and enable students to achieve
their goals. “The greatest thing about TechSoup is
that it makes technology accessible to everyone,
MotherCoders Founder, Tina Lee, interacts with students
at a data science workshop.
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