Date: August 14, 2024
As we prepare for the next Outreachy internship cohort, we ask for help from the open source community to secure Outreachy's legacy and our future.
In the span of Outreachy's 14-year journey, Outreachy has reached some amazing goals:
Outreachy internships have been an inclusive and welcoming introduction to open source for people who face systemic bias or discrimination in the technology industry of their country.
Outreachy does much more than introduce people to open source. Outreachy also helps the open source community retain people from marginalized groups:
Outreachy's future is bright, but our pathway to that future is becoming foggy. Like many diversity and open source initiatives, we are facing financial challenges, and we need the open source community's help and support.
There are several ways you can help support Outreachy:
We are optimistic about facing these challenges together. We believe that we need a collective effort from the whole open source community to improve our chances of overcoming these financial challenges. We want to raise the alarm early and ask for help, so that we aren't forced to make any sudden decisions on our own.
Finding funding for Outreachy has been extremely difficult this year. Funding for Outreachy comes from a variety of sources: open source community funds, non-profits, academic institutions, corporate sponsors, individual donors, and grants. This year, Outreachy donations are down across all sources of funding.
Outreachy requires open source communities to secure funding for at least one Outreachy intern ($8,000 USD).
In more recent rounds, due to generous grants, Outreachy was able to waive the requirement to provide internship funding for humanitarian and open science communities. Instead, these internships were funded directly from the Outreachy core activities fund. During the pandemic, we decided to fund additional internships with all types of mentoring communities. Our goal was to give much needed remote opportunities during a time when COVID-19 vaccines were a distant dream.
At first, Outreachy only funded a few internships directly from our core operating budget. Our largest internship cohort ever (May 2021 cohort) had 71 interns, with only 8 of the internships funded from the Outreachy core activities budget. A year later, with the help of a large grant, Outreachy accepted 67 interns, with 22 interns funded from the Outreachy core activities budget. By the May 2023 cohort, Outreachy was funding over half our internships directly from our core activities budget.
This year, several of Outreachy's grants have reached the end of their grant period. While the Outreachy team has applied to many different grant opportunities, none have been confirmed as of August 2024.
This leaves a funding gap for Outreachy's core program activities. The Outreachy core activities fund covers the cost of running the internship program, which includes all of the logistics of this complex program, as well as promoting open source to marginalized groups in tech, supporting interns, and advising mentors from open source and open science communities.
Outreachy is currently run by a small team of five paid Outreachy organizers, who guide 80 to 130 internships per year. We are proud that two of the Outreachy organizers are former Outreachy interns. The Outreachy organizer team is dedicated to ensuring the Outreachy application and internship periods run smoothly, and improving the program to promote inclusivity and equity.
Outreachy has budget reserve to continue paying our core team right now. We are committed to having dedicated staff to support applicants, interns, mentors, and open source community coordinators.
However, without incoming funding for Outreachy's core program activities, we worry about the future of our Outreachy organizer team. Outreachy internships are a high-touch, very interactive experience that requires oversight. Every cohort, there are a few internships that require advice or intervention to get back on track. Some of the issues that arise are ones that require great care and attention to handle properly. The dedication of the team in supporting both interns and mentors has ensured a 96% internship completion rate. Reducing the time Outreachy organizers spend on running the program will have detrimential impacts to both applicants, interns, and mentors.
Outreachy has also faced financial challenges in other areas. As a result of the financial uncertainty in the tech industry, may companies have reduced or cut open source financial support from their budget. Outreachy has been similarly impacted, as the total corporate donations we receive has decreased in the last two years.
Similarly impacted are open source communities who rely on corporate financial support. Many communities who traditionally mentor Outreachy interns have not been able to find funding for those internships. As they have lost corporate funding, they have increasingly asked for Outreachy to fund their internships directly from our core activities fund.
The open source community has also been impacted by the financial uncertainty in the tech industry. Many of the employers of open source contributors have announced budget cuts or layoffs. This creates an atmosphere of uncertainty, where people are afraid to lose their jobs. This means many former Outreachy mentors who would normally participate are struggling with precarious employment situations. This means finding Outreachy mentors is very hard, even when an open source community does have funding for an Outreachy internship.
The tech industry financial uncertainty has a triple impact on Outreachy: Outreachy is receiving less corporate donations, the demand for Outreachy to directly fund internships with our participating communities has increased, and open source communities who have internship funding can't find mentors because community members are facing unstable employment situations. Coupled with the end of several large grants, this means Outreachy's budget is very reduced.
We know Outreachy is not alone in experiencing decreased donations. Other diversity in tech programs are also struggling. After 17 years, Girls in Tech shut down quite suddenly due to lack of funding in addition to Women Who Code and other similarly situated programs.
Outreachy will work to avoid such scenarios and safeguard the stability of our organization. We have cut our conference travel and applicant promotion budget. We have also made tough decisions regarding the number of internships we can fund from Outreachy's core budget. We worry about the impact of our decisions on Outreachy applicants, and we also need to manage our resources prudently to mitigate any adverse impacts on our operations.
With our budget constraints in mind, the Outreachy team made the tough decision to drastically decrease the number of internships in the May 2024 cohort. Our May internship cohorts are typically our largest cohorts, ranging from 50 to 70 interns. While Outreachy had mentor capacity to accept 47 interns for the May 2024 cohort, we only had the budget capacity to accept 35 interns.
Without your help, Outreachy internship cohorts will stay small, around 30 to 40 interns at least through 2025.
We don't want to detract from our amazing internship cohort! However, given recent news of other open source foundations and diversity initiatives announcing their closures, we want to be transparent about the challenges Outreachy is facing.
We hope to face these challenges with the support of the amazing open source community, our corporate sponsors and grant makers, and all of the people who have participated in Outreachy. Together, we can face these challenges, weather the storm, and emerge more resilient than ever.
Read on to find different ways you can help Outreachy.
Outreachy welcomes open source communities to mentor our interns. We are especially looking for communities who have funding for at least one intern ($8,000 USD).
We know there are so many open source communities who are interested in participating in Outreachy, but just haven't found the time. The time is now.
If you are interested in mentoring Outreachy interns please:
Please contact us with your questions! You can email Outreachy organizers with questions at any time. Outreachy organizers also host office hours for mentors once a week. Additionally, you can also schedule a Q&A session or an onboarding session for new Outreachy mentoring communities. New Outreachy communities will work with Tilda Udufo, Outreachy's mentor advocate. Tilda has been both an Outreachy intern, mentor, and community coordinator. She is here to help!
Please contact Outreachy organizers to ask questions about mentoring Outreachy interns or to express interest in participating as an Outreachy mentoring organization.
We encourage folks to share relevant calls for grant proposals with us, by emailing organizers at outreachy.org
If you are a grant maker interested in learning more about Outreachy, please contact sponsors at outreachy.org
Outreachy welcomes additional corporate sponsors. We have the following game-changing sponsorship levels available for the December 2024 internship cohort:
Outreachy is proven to retain people from marginalized groups in open source:
Outreachy's goal is to increase diversity in open source. Past Outreachy interns are:
Statistics are based on responses to the 2019 longitudinal study of Outreachy alums.
Read more about Outreachy sponsorship
To sign up as a sponsor or request more information, please email sponsors at outreachy.org
If you have the financial means, Outreachy encourages you to donate via PayPal. Monthly donations are the most useful to us, but we welcome any donation amount you spare.
Donations are handled by Outreachy's 501(c)(3) non-profit parent organization, Software Freedom Conservancy. Donations are deductible from USA taxes. Individual donations are directed to Outreachy core activities fund, unless otherwise specified.
Individuals can also donate to Outreachy via check or wire.
Outreachy will be promoting the Software Freedom Conservancy fundraiser in November 2024. Outreachy is an initiative of Conservancy, and two Outreachy organizers are Conservancy staff. Outreachy could not operate without the support of Software Freedom Conservancy.
If you are interested in becoming a matching donor for Conservancy, please contact Pono at sfconservancy.org
You can also promote Outreachy's impact during the Conservancy fundraiser in November 2024. Please see the section below.
Sign up for Outreachy's announcement mailing list for more details on how to help with the fundraiser. Expect an email in mid-October.
Outreachy needs support from the open source community to share stories about the impact of our program.
Show your support of Outreachy
In October, Outreachy will be sharing badges that you can use for your profile picture on social media, GitHub, and GitLab. Anyone can use the Outreachy and Conservancy badge. Outreachy will also be sharing unique badges for past Outreachy interns, mentors, and community coordinators. Setting your avatar to this badge will help show the impact of Outreachy on the open source community.
Share stories of Outreachy's impact
You can also help by sharing stories of Outreachy's impact. We would love it if you would share your stories with us by emailing Outreachy organizers with a link to your story, and share them again during the SFC fundraiser in November. When you post your story, please make sure to tag the Outreachy account on the Fediverse (Mastodon), Twitter, or LinkedIn.
You can share your story via social media posts, blog posts, or videos. Please make sure any blog posts contain Creative Commons licensed pictures or other freely licensed graphics. If you create a video, please make sure to capture it in landscape mode (where the video is wider than it is tall). Please include a link to either Conservancy's donation page or Outreachy's donation page.
Stories of Outreachy's impact can come in all forms! No story is too small, and every story is important. We're so happy to hear that Outreachy has been an important to you and your open source community.
Promoting Outreachy intern stories
If you are a past Outreachy intern, we want to hear about your journey! You are welcome to write about any aspect of Outreachy's impact on you. If you need any help brainstorming things to write about, you can ask yourself the following questions: Where were you before your Outreachy internship? What path did you take after your internship? What challenges have you faced? How did the skills you learned during Outreachy help you on your journey? How did working with an Outreachy mentor and open source community change your life? Then use the answers to create your story, and share it via social media, blog post, video, or whatever format works for you. If you don't feel comfortable sharing it on social media or would rather share it anonymously, you can reach out to us and we can post your story.
We also encourage open source communities to write about the contributions of past Outreachy interns. You can talk about an Outreachy intern's contribution during their internship, or a past Outreachy intern's contributions after their internship. We are especially interested in hearing about the journey of Outreachy past interns to become key contributors, community leaders, and open source advocates.
Promoting Outreachy's impact on open source communities
We also encourage past Outreachy mentoring communities to write about the impact Outreachy had on your open source community. Perhaps the Outreachy application process was an eye-opening way to see how your community's new contributor processes could be improved. Maybe your community learned more inclusive practices from an Outreachy organizer or another Outreachy mentoring organization. Perhaps your community was one that was transformed by continued involvement by former interns. There is no impact that is too small! We are so excited to hear how Outreachy has impacted your open source community.
Sharing Outreachy mentors' stories
For past Outreachy mentors, we encourage you to talk about how Outreachy has impacted you personally. Perhaps Outreachy helped you improve your communication or collaboration skills. Maybe your experience as an Outreachy mentor has improved how you mentor coworkers in your job. Perhaps working with an Outreachy intern opened your eyes to a different perspective and different experiences of people around the world. Maybe you found personal joy and satisfaction in watching your Outreachy intern take on new challenges, learn and grow. Outreachy is so interested to hear how people find meaning and purpose by volunteering as Outreachy mentors.
Join the fundraising discussion
We are so excited to hear and promote your stories! If you have any questions, you can email Outreachy organizers. If you are a past Outreachy participant, please join the fundraising discussion on the private Outreachy Zulip chat. If you need access to Zulip, please email Outreachy organizers with your name, which internship cohort you participated in, what role you participated as (intern, mentor, coordinator), and what open source community you participated with.
Fundraising announcement email
Sign up for Outreachy's announcement mailing list for more details on how to help with the end of year fundraiser. You can expect an email in mid-October.
