Why Community Support is More Important Than Ever this #GivingTuesday

About a week after the election I sent an email to our students asking them to share with me their fears, their concerns, and their questions in light of the election results. I received countless responses that day. Girls from all across the nation sent me emails expressing their outrage, their sadness, their excitement, and their hope for the future.

In the aftermath of the election, I look at the current political landscape and try to anticipate what lies ahead. For our girls, my greatest hope is their dreams are not deferred as that final glass ceiling still hangs painfully intact above us.

Many of you have reached out to us over the past few weeks about ways you can make a greater impact in your community. Whether you’re driven by education reform, economic opportunity, or women’s equality, you’re thinking about how you can make a difference for your families, your schools, and your workplaces. The outpouring of support these past few weeks has given us hope and an even greater belief in the work we do and the urgency with which we do it.

One of the truly great things about Girls Who Code is that we’re a grassroots movement led by supporters like YOU. From teaching 20 girls in a conference room in the summer of 2012 to more than 40,000 girls across all 50 U.S. states by the end of this year, this movement has grown thanks to supporters like you who put time, resources and energy into our cause. Because of you, we’ve been able to give girls both the technical skills to solve problems facing their communities and the economic opportunity to give their family a shot at the middle class.

And yet, there’s still so much work to be done. At a time when computing skills are the most sought-after in the U.S. job market, girls are still being left behind. Our recent #CracktheCode research report showed us that the share of women in computing fields has fallen from 37% in 1995 to 24% today, and will continue to decline if we don’t act now.

Today, on #GivingTuesday, we ask that you take action. Starting now through January 9, 2017, Girls Who Code is launching our #CracktheCode holiday giving campaign to help us act now to close the gender gap in tech in 2017. In addition to donations, for the first time ever we’re launching peer-to-peer fundraising so anyone can start a fundraising campaign for our programs in their local community.

With your help, we can continue to ensure girls all across the nation have access to our programs.

To learn more about our campaign, visit www.girlswhocode.com/donate