Outreachy internship stipends, travel fund, and program costs are supported by our generous donors. Whether you're an individual wanting to support diversity in tech, or a corporation that uses Free and Open Source Software, we invite you to support Outreachy!
Mozilla community coordinator, Larisa Shaprio (middle), with former Outreachy interns Maja Frydrychowicz (left) and Sara Mansouri (right). After their Outreachy internships, Maja became a Mozilla employee and Sara continued as a volunteer leader in various areas of the project. (Photo CC-BY-SA-NC Sage Sharp)
Current Sponsors
A list of current sponsors can be found on our homepage.Individual Donors
If you're an individual interested in donating to Outreachy, see our personal donation instructions.
Corporate Sponsors
Our corporate sponsors can support Outreachy by donating in any combination of three ways:
1. Internship stipends for a specific set of Free and Open Source (FOSS) communities. Corporate donors often want to support the FOSS projects they use internally, and sponsoring internships for a specific FOSS community is a wonderful way to support free and open source software development.2. Internship stipends for any FOSS community participating in Outreachy. Each community that participates in Outreachy internships must secure funding for at least one intern. Every internship round, some FOSS Communities find they have more outstanding applicants than they have funding for. Communities can ask for additional internship funding from the Outreachy general fund.
3. Outreachy general fund. This covers program costs, organizer time, travel and outreach to communities traditionally underrepresented in tech. The general fund is also used to fund additional outstanding applicants to the Outreachy program.
Corporate sponsors'
logos are proudly displayed on the Outreachy home page. We publicly thank
sponsors who are Promoter level and above on the Outreachy twitter account, which is followed by a diverse set of FOSS contributors. Corporate sponsors of all levels are welcome to send
opportunities to a private opt-in mailing list for Outreachy interns,
alumni, and mentors. Outreachy also lists sponsor career pages on the opportunities page.
Outreachy Opportunities List
The primary goal of this list is to connect Outreachy sponsors with Outreachy participants. Sponsors are invited to share job, internship, event, and other opportunities that they think might be of interest to the Outreachy community. Additionally, all Outreachy community members are invited to share job and internship opportunities.
Typically, we expect people to not send e-mail about the same
opportunity more than twice and to send information about new
opportunities no more than twice a week. If you are representing a
sponsoring organization and would like to share opportunities with your
member companies, please do so no more than once a month in a form of a
digest.
The Outreachy opportunities list reaches participants around the world, so please provide details that can help people decide if any given e-mail is relevant to them in the subject line. For example, if an opportunity requires people to be in a particular location, please include the location in the subject line.
Sponsorship Levels
Please consider sponsoring the program at one of these game-changing levels:
Ceiling Smasher: $52,000
Equalizer: $32,500
Promoter: $19,500
Includer: $6,500
Outreachy
sponsorship is credited on a per-round basis. With two rounds a year,
you will be credited for half a year according to the amount you choose.
Why Sponsor Diversity in FOSS?
The diversity data for the U.S. released by many tech companies shows that many of them only have 1-3% Black and 2-4% Hispanic employees in technical roles, while the population of the U.S. is 13% Black and 17% Hispanic. We don't have any data like this for free software participation, but we can tell there is a lack of racial and ethnic diversity at conferences we attend.
It's important that we reach more people with the information that the FOSS community is (by and large) mature and friendly, and that contributing to FOSS is valuable for both social and professional reasons. In this way, we are growing the community and improving our ability to reach even more people.
We know from the 2017 GitHub survey that "women are also more likely than men to seek out help directly (29% vs 13%) from people they already know well (22% vs 6%), rather than ask for help from strangers in a public forum or channel." It can be intimidating to submit contributions and get feedback on public forums. Outreachy provides a gentle introduction to FOSS by providing mentors who can guide applicants through making their first public contributions during the application period. Then selected interns work remotely with the same mentor during the three month internship.By participating in the program, applicants and interns develop a good understanding of the power of FOSS and skills necessary to continue contributing to it. Outreachy provides a collaborative environment in which newcomers from underrepresented backgrounds can get help working on their first contributions and a focused opportunity for them to dedicate a full-time effort to learning and contributing to FOSS.
Why Sponsor Outreachy?
The program attracts many motivated and talented applicants. Most of our interns have had their work included in the software releases, with some of them completing major features during their internships. About half of the program participants stay involved with the organization they worked with past their internship, and 153 from among 449 past participants accomplished one or more of the following:- 91 had full-session talks on FOSS topics at conferences, of them, 32 in 2015, 36 in 2016, and 41 in 2017
- 81 found employment or contract positions with sponsoring organizations
- 29 continued on to participate in Google Summer of Code
- 28 became mentors for Outreachy or Google Summer of Code
- 3 organized local technology initiatives - Meg Ford started Chicagoans Hacking on GNOME, Martha Chumo Chelimo started Nairobi Dev School, Satabdi Das started Women in Free Software - India
- Ekaterina Gerasimova and Meg Ford became GNOME Foundation board members
- Valerie Young became a Software in the Public Interest board member
- Yan Zhu was named among "Women in IT Security: Women to watch" by SC Magazine in 2015
- Tapasweni Pathak received a Systers Anita Borg Fall 2015 Pass-It-On Award
Victoria Martínez de la Cruz received OpenStack mentor of mentors award
Commonly Asked Questions
Q: Are corporate sponsors required to help run the internship program?A: No. The Outreachy application process, intern selection coordination, communication with mentors, and payments to interns are all handled by Outreachy organizers.
Q: When do you bill for sponsorship?
A: For the May to August round, sponsors are billed in May. For the December to March round, sponsors are billed in December. If you have a specific quarterly deadline, Outreachy can bill earlier or later. Outreachy general fund sponsors can be billed any time of the year. Billing will be handled through our parent organization, the Software Freedom Conservancy.
Q: Who pays the interns?
A: The Outreachy parent organization, the Software Freedom Conservancy, handles payments to interns.
Q: Are Outreachy interns employees or interns of the corporate sponsors?
A: No. Outreachy interns are considered contractors of the Software Freedom Conservancy during their internship.
Q: We have a company internship program. How does that work with Outreachy internships?
A: Outreachy internships are completely separate from any other internship program. Outreachy organizers find FOSS communities that are willing to provide mentorship and use corporate sponsorship to fund the internships.
Q. If I'm a corporate sponsor, do I have to provide a mentor for the internship program?
A: No. While employees from many corporate sponsors mentor for Outreachy, it's not required for corporate sponsors to provide either mentors or internship project ideas. FOSS communities generally provide their own mentors and project ideas. If a sponsor does have an internship idea and a mentor, they should review the community guidelines.
Q: If I sponsor a specific FOSS community and that community doesn't find an intern, what happens?
A: Sometimes FOSS communities don't have enough applicants, or their best applicant accepts another opportunity. Outreachy will try to encourage applicants towards communities that do not have enough applicants but we cannot guarantee that a community will find a suitable intern. We will use our best efforts to work with the sponsor and use the funds for that particular community or another that the sponsor prefers for two years, after which we'll use them for any Outreachy activity.
Q: How does the travel stipend work? Can interns use it to go to a company event?
A: The $500 Outreachy travel stipend is for intern travel to technical conferences with FOSS content or to events where interns can network with their mentor and members of their FOSS community. Company events may meet our travel stipend guidelines if they allow the intern to work with their mentor or other community contributors.
Q: What happens if an intern doesn't use their travel stipend?
A: Travel stipends can be used for travel initiated within a year after the beginning of the internship. Unused travel allowances will be added to the Outreachy general funds.
Q: Did you used to be called something else?
A: Outreachy was started in 2010 by the GNOME Project as the Outreach Program for Women (OPW). The name was changed in 2015 when the program was moved to Software Freedom Conservancy as its non-profit home with a vision to expand to include people from other groups underrepresented in tech. In 2006, the GNOME Project ran a one-time Women's Summer Outreach Program, which was the predecessor of OPW.
Q: Are you still associated with GNOME?
A: GNOME has been an Outreachy mentoring community throughout the Outreachy's history. After Outreachy moved under our current non-profit home, Software Freedom Conservancy, GNOME continued to host some Outreachy resources, including our website, wiki, application system, and IRC channel. We thank GNOME for their support of the program.