05 Jan 2018
Success

A Look Back at hEr VOLUTION in 2017

hEr VOLUTION is a Toronto-based, non-profit organization dedicated to providing mentorship and training to young women from underserved communities with the goal of increasing their representation in STEM fields. Since our incorporation in 2013, hEr VOLUTION has worked with local schools and other community organizations to positively impact over 2,000 young women through STEM-related workshops, camps, and seminars. Young women are introduced to a wide-range of skills and experiences designed to help them achieve their life and career goals. In addition to providing marketable life, business, and coding skills, we also focus on teaching young women how to navigate and make use of low-cost or free online resources.

2017 has been a great year for hEr VOLUTION and we have accomplished a lot. Here is an overview of the things we did at a glance:

PROGRAMMING

March Break Camp

hEr VOLUTION received a $10,000 donation from Leacross Foundation to be used for this program.

In partnership with YWCA and Sky’s The Limit, hEr VOLUTION successfully run the ThinkTank Camp during March Break where 10 young women had the opportunity to learn about entrepreneurship through the use of technology and financial literacy. The camp curriculum is a condensed version of the 4-month program run in 2016. The curriculum was designed to introduce young women to skills such as:

  • Business Planning
  • Marketing Planning
  • Financial Planning
  • Coding and Web Development
  • Public Speaking and Pitching

Other skills that this program offered is confidence building and life skills necessary for career development in the real world. At the end of the program, the participants each received a laptop from Sky’s The Limit to take home to help them further their learning.

One STEM camp participant from 2016, was hired to lead the coding session of this program. Two Salesforce staff came to volunteer for 8 hours.

We know that we will need $10,000 to complete this program in the future. We will use curriculum for future programs (i.e summer camps)

 

GO!STEM Summer Program

For the 3rd year in a row, hEr VOLUTION has partnered with Salesforce to run the GO!STEM Summer program. This year we facilitated 30 young women for a four-day camp-like experience that enabled them with the opportunity to explore technology in a new and exciting way. They also had the opportunity to meet with Salesforce staff during fireside chats and discovery sessions where they explored the Salesforce office for the purpose of learning about their work in hopes to be inspired to consider technology as a future career.

The young women walked away with a MacBook Air to take home to help them with future learning. We also created our Slack Group where we entered all the participants in so that we can share updates on future events as well as an outreach strategy for future programs. This will definitely help hEr VOLUTION evaluate where the participants are in the future and their career needs.

Salesforce covered the cost of the planning and execution of this program. Salesforce funded hEr VOLUTION to outreach for participants and to pay an intern as well as transportation costs for participants.

Here is a video to show the last day of the program and the surprise that young women showed when they received the laptops

  • We will continue to work with Salesforce to bring forward future GO!STEM Summer Programs.

  

#CanWomenSTEM150 Online Campaign

It started as a way for us to find role models and expand our network of women in STEM as well as a way to discover opportunities in STEM fields.

As Canada celebrated its 150th Anniversary, we decided to take 150 days to celebrate Canadian Women in STEM. This was a great opportunity to raise awareness on our organization, to expand our network and to help the organization grow in the future.

We created an Instagram account dedicated to this campaign. We also dedicated a page on our website in order for young women who visit our website to learn more about opportunities in STEM, to select women who are already in STEM as role models. We can confidently say that hEr VOLUTION received great responses from this campaign. We have broadened our network nationally by 167 new connections and their network. This had given us enough insight to see if campaigns like these can continue to run in the future.

We did not have any funding for the campaign however, it was crucial that we expand our network and raise awareness for hEr VOLUTION and what we do. We will raise funds through grants and/or sponsorships to support this initiative in the future.

Canadian Women in STEM conference

On October 14, we gathered over 150 diverse people to discuss strategies for diversity in STEM. We selected 15 of the women that have been nominated and featured throughout the #CanWomenSTEM150 campaign. The speakers and panelists delivered excellent talks and discussion at the panel.

Here are some testimonials from the conference:

  1. What a privilege to be in a room with so many talented, hard-working, determined women who really just want to make this world a better place, not only for each other but anyone who faces difficulties towards being their best self. You did an amazing job and all the volunteers were great. I hope that this conference will continue for many years to come and I hope that I will always get the chance to attend! I am nearing the end of my PhDand starting to really try and figure out what I want to do after this, and who knows maybe I will find myself in Toronto pursuing my own found niche! All these women, including yourself are such inspirations.

  2. Again, thank you for all you do and your amazing hard work!

  3. The diversity of the speakers as well as the audience. Although the panel discussion became more of a group discussion, I think this is much more interesting than when the audience is very quiet and only the moderator and panelists speak.

  4. I think these events are fantastic for students and young women that are thinking about being in STEM because it shows them role models, that it’s possible, and that they can do it.

  5. There was great energy in the room. The ability for the Q&A discussion with the panel and reflection discussions between segments added great texture to the experience

  6. The panel was an excellent idea to engage the audience and split nicely between speakers. The conversation was great and having students participate was beneficial to combating the gender gap in STEM

Because this conference has been so well received,  we will run the conference annually. With that, we will include more sponsors and promote the conference ahead of time, strategically. We will turn the conference in an annual fundraising event – conference to raise funds for hEr VOLUTION. urthermore, we will include a more diverse speaker line-up i.e. LGBTQ+

 

PARTNERS:

We have collaborated in the past with some stellar partners and in 201 we added the following partners to the elite list:

Partner Name Contribution
Leacross Foundation            $10,000 donation
Spade Designs Website redesign
Sky’s The Limit Computer Donations (10)
Faculty of Science at Ryerson $1,500 Sponsorship
Lighthouse Labs $1,000 Sponsorship
Sticker You $200 in-kind sponsorship
Education Through Media Collaborating Partner – Fundraising
YWCA Strategic Partner for the March Break Camp
What She Said Radio Media Partner for the Canadian Women in STEM Conference
CanWIT Media Partner for the Canadian Women in STEM Conference
Kristina James Designs Branding Partner for the #CanWomenSTEM150 campaign and the Canadian Women in STEM Conference a $15,000 value
Harlem Restaurant Fundraised $350
Twenty Toronto Street $2000 in-kind space for conference
Elle Made Well Chose hEr VOLUTION to fundraise for via cause marketing campaigns
Read It For Me Over $5,000 value of readitfor.me user experience for the conference
Blakes Law Firm Pro-Bono Legal Support in obtaining Charitable Status for hEr VOLUTION

2018

In order for our organization to strategically move forward, we have identified some focused programming such as:

 

STEMing Up Program

To be running every year launching on 2018. The program will start in May of 2018.

Needs Assessment:

  • The program is estimated to cost $236, 000 to run for the 1st year and $472,000 each year after that.
  • We are working on partnering with local companies to support with funding this project
  • We are building a Committee for this program to help with fundraising, marketing, program management and other skills
  • We will design a detailed curriculum for the program

 

STEM Camps

It is clear that obtaining funding to run programs is difficult therefore we will use the social entrepreneurship model to fundraise for programming for low income demographic who we originally intended to serve.

In order to do that, we will do the following:

  • Run 3 STEM Camps where we charge participants to attend.
  • We will partner with local businesses to donate facilitation time, materials and, if at all possible, space.
  • The funds raised through this imitative will enable us to offer 1 STEM camp at no cost to the low-income demographic.

 

GO!STEM Camp

We are very excited to announce that we will continue to work with Salesforce to run the annual GO! STEM Camp. Please stay tuned for more info.

Annual Conference / Fundraising Event

As mentioned above, we will continue to run the conference as a fundraising imitative for hEr VOLUTION.

Recommendations:

  • Planning discussion to start as early as February
  • Include former committee members to help
  • Add more members with specific skills

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