At Scratch Marketing + Media, we’re huge fans of radical technologies, and we’re even bigger fans of the visionaries who pioneer them.
The co-pilots at Scratch are fortunate to work side-by-side with some of the current generation’s most exciting entrepreneurs and tech innovators. From telling their stories and watching their growth, we know that tech and data literacy don’t just happen. Like all skills, they have to be nurtured—and that’s why it’s so important that we continue to invest in the next generation. So this year, we’ve decided to make our annual charitable contribution to Hack the Hood, a non-profit organization that provides “quality and identity-affirming tech skill building programs” for early-career youth and communities of color.
Hack the Hood offers tech skill-building programs rooted in justice and career navigation support that ensures economic mobility. The organization serves young people of color who are 16-25 years old and who want to pursue tech-related careers but don’t yet have access to the resources they need. Hack the Hood also provides skills-building and mentorship programs to small business owners to enhance their business acumen.
In 2019, minority-owned firms made up 29% of the nation’s businesses yet the minority share of the U.S. population was 40% in 2020. That percentage needs to increase, and the opportunity gap for minority-owned businesses needs to be closed—and the work Hack the Hood does contributes to closing that gap.
In the summer of 2021, Hack the Hood and consultancy ISKME ran pre- and post-program surveys to evaluate three curricula (Tech Justice, Python and GitHub). Results showed that:
- 88% of program participants reported an increase in their programming and coding skills
- 77% of program participants reported an increase in their understanding of how to frame technology development with a social justice perspective
- 96% of program participants reported an increase in awareness of tech career opportunities
- Program participants reported about 40% more awareness of career opportunities and what their next steps needed to be
Here’s my take on it: The co-pilots at Scratch selected Hack the Hood for our annual charity contribution. We’re excited to support an organization that aims to ensure economic mobility for young people and business owners of color. The mission to provide support systems, guidance and tech acumen to SMB owners, and early-career mentorship, tech skills and professional guidance to the next generation of tech innovators resonated with them. And as professionals who provide support and strategy to businesses of all sizes, we are intimately familiar with how much support entrepreneurs need.
In my 12 years since starting Scratch, I’ve learned that everyone’s journey starts somewhere—that ‘somewhere’ is different for every co-pilot at Scratch, and it’s different for every one of the leaders at tech companies we work with from around the globe. It’s important to us that we help others along their journeys. Hack the Hood is setting up under-resourced communities to find their ‘somewhere’ and start their journeys.
To learn more about Hack the Hood, visit https://www.hackthehood.org/.
