Call for May 2021 mentoring communities

Date: January 15, 2021

Two black women sit on a couch, with laptops on their lap. One woman is pointing to the other woman's laptop screen. The other woman is smiling. Photo is cc-by 2.0 WOCinTech Chat

Photo CC BY 2.0 WOCinTech Chat

Outreachy seeks mentoring communities

Outreachy is seeking open source communities to participate in the May to August 2021 internship round.

As everyone is aware, donations to Outreachy have decreased over the last few years. Because of this, Outreachy is not currently able to fund any internships out of our general activities fund.

Outreachy's finances are at a critical point. We would be so grateful if all of our communities help us identify fundraising leads so that Outreachy can continue to run.

Donation amounts

In order to run our program in the most basic way, Outreachy needs to receive donations of at least $8,000 to $10,000 USD per intern we accept. This breaks down to:

Outreachy is currently facing critical financial challenges. At this time, communities must donate at least $8,000 USD per intern they wish to mentor. We really hope communities increase their donation beyond that to ensure Outreachy can continue running.

Outreachy is a labor intensive program. Outreachy organizers are highly involved with interns. Outreachy organizers work closely with your community's mentors to empower your interns to pursue a future in FOSS. While most of our internships complete without issues, each cohort there are multiple internships where the organizers step in provide support to both interns and mentors. They also are almost always available via Zulip to both interns and mentors.

Outreachy's deep support of interns, along with your mentoring partnership, means 80% of past Outreachy interns continue to contribute to open source after their internship.

We need your community's help to identify and convince organizations to provide donations to help Outreachy sustain our deep support of interns, and retain their amazing talent in our open source community. Please don't think about this as just finding funding for your interns for this internship cohort. This is about ensuring the future of Outreachy, and we ask for your help to fund our essential program activities.

Important dates:

Please see the full mentor schedule below.

Submit Community Application


What communities need to know

What is Outreachy?
Humanitarian community funding
May 2021 internship dates


What is Outreachy?

Outreachy is an internship program. Outreachy internships are:

💵 Paid - $6,000 USD total internship stipend

🌍 Remote - both interns and mentors work remotely

🕰 3 months - internships run to

Outreachy's goal is to increase diversity in open source. Past Outreachy interns are:

♀️ 92% women

🏳️‍🌈 4% transgender, genderqueer, or non-binary people

🧕🏾 64% people of color

🧑🏿 12% people from a historically disadvantaged caste or tribe

Statistics are based on responses to the 2019 longitudinal study of Outreachy alums.

Read Community Guide


Humanitarian community funding

Outreachy is seeking humanitarian open source communities to participate in the May 2021 internship round.

We especially invite humanitarian communities to apply who are tackling:

These are some of the greatest challenges humanity faces today.

Please contact Outreachy organizers with your questions!

Funding details

Outreachy is pleased to announce that the Outreachy general fund will be funding humanitarian open source communities.

Outreachy will provide funding for at least one intern ($ USD) for each community. Some communities may receive additional funding if they have multiple strong applicants.

Mentors and projects

We encourage communities to list 1-3 intern projects.

Outreachy encourages co-mentoring projects! We encourage communities to find two or more mentors. Communities should also consider finding volunteers to help applicants with project tasks during the contribution period

Mentor time commitment:

Mentors will need to provide an internship project description. Outreachy does not allow applicants to submit project ideas.

Mentors will need to provide a list of tasks for applicants to work on during the contribution period.


May 2021 internship dates

at 4pm UTCCommunity sign up opens
at 4pm UTCInitial applications open
at 4pm UTCInitial application deadline
at 4pm UTC⚠️ Deadline for communities to sign up to mentor
at 4pm UTC⚠️ Deadline for mentors to subject project descriptions
Contribution period begins
Contribution period ends
at 4pm UTCFinal application deadline
Intern selection deadline
Outreachy organizers finalize intern selections
at 4pm UTCInterns are publicly announced on the alums page

to
Internships period

Apply to participate

Submit Community Application