You may have seen the “You Belong Here” phrase used by folks at Gatsby. You may have also thought, “Does that really include me?” The answer is YES. We want the Gatsby community and developer community at large to not just accept everyone, but actively seek and elevate the voices of those from underrepresented groups.
We’re so excited to announce the following 5 steps, which are just the beginning of our efforts:
Investing in the Community: Gatsby is going to sponsor two interns at Outreachy. Outreachy provides internships in programming, user experience, documentation, illustration, graphical design, or data science to work in Free and Open Source Software. Internships are open to applicants around the world who face under-representation or systemic bias in the technology industry.
Gatsby Fellowship Program: In 2020 we will begin having paid Gatsby fellows sourced from diverse communities, who will receive mentorship and the potential to join the Gatsby team after the completion of their fellowship.
External Partnerships Fund: We are committing \$10,000 per year to sponsor events and programs, which help bring individuals from underrepresented groups into the developer community. We will evaluate our contributions every six months.
Donation Credits: Previously, individuals who contributed to Gatsby received a credit to our Swag Store to put towards merch. As of today, people have the additional option of donating the credited amount to our External Partnerships Fund (in addition to the \$10,000).
Code of Conduct: We have created the conduct@gatsbyjs.com alias, which can be used to report any behavior that violates our Code of Conduct to Gatsby leadership team.
We review our commitments every six months to ensure effectiveness, so we welcome thoughts and ideas about how to make this even better!