This summer, Jase Wilson gave me the opportunity to take charge of molding the culture at Neighborly. He was specifically interested to know how the company could attract and cultivate a diverse team. I recalled the #RealDiversityNumbers movement:
In 2013, Tracy Chou became the first to spotlight tech’s extremely low diversity numbers. She opened the dialogue about what the industry is (and isn’t) doing to encourage minorities in computing.
Here are some background stats to be aware of:
Twitter’s technical staff has only 10% women,
and Facebook and Yahoo’s at 15% women.
HP has 80.4% white executives.
Yahoo has 78% white executives.
Cisco has 75% white executives.
Pinterest has only 19% female leadership
while they have an 81% female user base.
How are your #RealDiversityNumbers looking?
Most companies today are engaging in dialogue around diversity; yet in the past couple years, change has been slow.
The inherent benefits of diversity aren’t just pretty talk — cold, hard statistics prove from a basic economic perspective, companies with more diversity have higher capital efficiency, higher ROI, higher success rates, and larger user pools that otherwise would have been unexplored. I cannot emphasize enough how important diversity is.
A study of 101 public, private, and nonprofit organizations found that those with three or more women on their executive boards outperformed other companies on all of the study’s measures of performance: leadership, direction, accountability, coordination and control, external orientation, capability, work environment, and values.
I wanted Neighborly to implement solutions. But I didn’t know where to start, and realized other people may feel the same way.
It’s not about consciously hiring based on gender or race. It’s about consciously reaching out to diverse pools for recruitment so that all minorities are equally represented in a company’s job applicant distribution. I’d also recommend hiring on a name and gender-blind basis to prevent unconscious bias. There are countless support organizations for underrepresented communities that endorse diversity-friendly companies. And frankly, these companies with endorsement seem like much better prospects for where I want to work in terms of a safe and friendly environment.
How can your company attract a diverse group of applicants? Use this minority-focused collection of job listing boards and services.
Please feel free to leave notes or responses with other resources to help get companies and communities connected!
Gender-Focused Communities
Anita Borg Institute (Join their job listing, powered by VentureLoop)
In 1987, computer scientist Anita Borg started a digital community for women in computing. Today, ABI works with women technologists in over 50 countries, and partners with leading academic institutions and Fortune 500 companies. Read more
CareerWomen (Create an employer profile)
CareerWomen.com is the National leader in women’s online recruiting. They tailor to the needs of today’s working women, and provides easy access to top employers and recruiters who are actively looking to recruit & hire women. Read more
Hackbright (Become a Hackbright partner)
Join in for their upcoming Career Day on September 2nd in San Francisco as a Hackbright partner. Feel free to go a step further and become a sponsor for their student scholarships, industry dinner, mentorship program, and more. Read more
Mogul (Join their job listing)
Mogul is an award-winning technology platform that enables women worldwide to share ideas, solicit advice, and access content based on their personal interests. Reaching 18 million women per week, Mogul is visited by more than 196 countries and 30,470 cities worldwide. Read more
Mothercoders (Become a partner)
MotherCoders is a non-profit that helps moms on-ramp to careers in technology. Read more
NCWIT (Join their workforce alliance)
The National Center for Women & Information Technology is a non-profit community of more than 600 universities, companies, non-profits, and government organizations nationwide working to increase women’s participation in computing and technology. Read more
She++ (Become a sponsor)
she++ is a 501©3 nonprofit organization working to empower underrepresented groups in technology by dismantling negative stereotypes surrounding technical careers. Read more
Techtonica (Sponsor and hire students)
Techtonica aims to make every technical team as diverse as its local community while empowering low-income women and non-binary adults through technical training and careers. Read more
The Society of Women Engineers (Join their job listing)
For more than six decades, SWE has given women engineers a unique place and voice within the engineering industry, centered around a passion for their members’ success. SWE now has nearly 30k members. Read more
Trans*H4CK (Become a partner)
Trans*H4CK creates technology that economically empowers, improves access to social services, promotes gender safety and community sustainability, while bringing visibility to trans* tech innovators and entrepreneurs. Read more
Webgrrls (Join their job listing)
Webgrrls members are technically savvy women (98% female audience) who are serious about propelling their careers forward. They demonstrate that they are more serious about their careers by the simple fact that they invest their time, mind, and money to join our organization and leverage all of the resources that are available to them. Read more
WEPAN (Create an employer profile)
Women in Engineering ProActive Network is a non-profit educational organization founded in 1990 to be a catalyst for change to enhance the success of women in the engineering professions. Read more
Women 2.0 (Create an employer profile)
Women 2.0 is the world’s largest community-driven media brand designed for the next generation of technology leaders. Their mission is to strengthen technology businesses by connecting, inspiring and educating the next generation of technology leaders. Read more
Women In Technology (Join their job listing)
No matter where you are in your professional development, or what technology-related field you’re in, WIT’s community offers a broad range of support, programs and resources to advance women in technology from the classroom to the boardroom. Read more
Women in Technology International (Join their job listing)
WITI has a global network of smart, talented women and a market reach exceeding 2 million, and provides connections, resources, and opportunities to a supportive environment of women. Read more
Women Who Code (Become a supporter)
WWCode is dedicated to inspiring women to excel in technology careers. They connect amazing women with other like minded amazing women around the globe. Read more
Try colleges too.
- UC Berkeley’s Society of Women Engineers
- Caltech’s Society of Women Engineers
- MIT’s Society of Women Engineers
- University of North Carolina’s Pearl Hacks
- Stanford’s Women in Computer Science
- USC’s Girls In Tech
Race-Focused Communities
All Star Code (Become a partner)
All Star Code is a non-profit initiative that prepares qualified young men of color for full-time employment in the technology industry by providing mentorship, industry exposure, and intensive training in computer science. Read more
Black Girls Code (Become a FlatIron School partner)
Black Girls Code aims to increase the number of women of color in the digital space by empowering girls of color ages 7 to 17 to become innovators in STEM fields, leaders in their communities, and builders of their own futures. Read more
Code2040 (Become a partner)
CODE2040 is a nonprofit organization that creates pathways to educational, professional, entrepreneurial success in technology for underrepresented minorities with a specific focus on Blacks and Latino/as. Read more
Dev Color (Become a sponsor)
/dev/color is a non-profit organization who’s mission is to maximize the impact of Black software engineers. We create environments where Black software engineers can learn from one another and hold one another accountable for reaching ambitious career goals. Read more
Hack The Hood (Post a job listing)
Hack the Hood is an award-winning non-profit that introduces low-income youth of color to careers in tech by hiring and training them to build websites for real small businesses in their own communities. Read more
Jopwell (Become a partner)
Jopwell tackles the challenges of diversity recruitment head on,
providing companies with an effective platform for identifying,
recruiting, and hiring highly skilled minority candidates.
Live in Peace (Become a supporter)
Live In Peace is an East Palo Alto-based organization committed to advancing the cultural, educational, and economic empowerment of youth in communities of color. Read more
SACNAS (Post a job listing)
SACNAS is a society of scientists dedicated to fostering the success of Chicano/Hispanic and Native American scientists — from college students to professionals — to attain advanced degrees, careers, and positions of leadership in science. Read more
Women Of Color in Tech (Become a partner)
We provide support for & engage in advocacy on behalf of Latina, Indigenous, and Black women professionals in technology. Read more
#YesWeCode (Become a partner)
The #YesWeCode initiative targets low-opportunity youth and provides them with the necessary resources and tools to become world-class computer programmers. Read more
Services & more…
RecruitHER (Use their service)
recruitHER is a women-owned, full-service agency committed to connecting technology companies with diverse, qualified candidates. Through their consultative coaching and a careful matching process, recruitHER enables diverse candidates who are interested in or already pursuing careers in technology to better identify opportunities that match their skills and interests. Read more
Blendoor (Use their service)
Blendoor is a mobile “blind recruiting” app that mitigates unconscious bias. They focus on getting more women, minority, LGBTQ, Veteran and Disabled candidates into the top of the recruiting pipeline. Watch their video
LimeConnect (Become a partner)
Lime Connect is leading the way as the premier resource for top talent in the disability space by attracting, preparing and connecting highly accomplished individuals with disabilities for careers with the world’s leading corporations. Read more
Remember, this is just step one.
Celebrating Women in Computing and sponsoring minority organizations could be Step Two. Please, do your part and make your company awesome and inclusive. Share your #RealDiversityNumbers, and let us know how it’s going. We all start somewhere.
Eva is the chairman of Hacker Fund, is a 501©(3) nonprofit public charity dedicated to providing resources for computer science education, and previous ED of Cal Hacks. She is also an intern at Neighborly, a startup tackling the municipal bond market to let residents invest directly in their communities and also her #1 supporter throughout this process. Read their fun, cute guide to the municipal bond market here. She has had a truly amazing summer with them, and can’t wait to see this company redefine the world of community investing.
Have any insights or additional resources for this list? Please 💌 me or write a response, and recommend this article to any founders, recruiters, & companies you know.
Thanks to Alex Kern, Ari Vanlderstine, Chloe Revery, Dave Fontenot, Hallie Lomax, Jase Wilson, Jennifer Rubinovitz, and Kiran Jain for reading drafts of this and giving amazing feedback 💛
