One year ago—in the wake of the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery, and the country’s elevated discourse confronting centuries of racial injustice—the Cognizant Foundation made a commitment to invest $5 million to serve communities of color in the coming years.

This commitment, in addition to our longstanding work to support underserved and underrepresented communities, marked a recognition that there is so much more to be done to provide equitable access to the quality education, training, job opportunities and career supports required to achieve economic mobility and stability. 

As Kristen Titus, the foundation’s executive director, detailed in a recent Fast Company piece: “There is no quick fix to closing the racial equity gap. But we cannot afford to let exhaustion creep in and derail the renewed urgency around diversity and inclusion efforts.” This is especially true in industries like tech, where over the past year companies across the country made sweeping promises to improve the diversity makeup of their workforces.

“Changing entrenched systems requires prolonged and consistent effort, and our industry still has a ways to go,” said Shameka Young, vice president and global head of diversity and inclusion at Cognizant. “To truly create a culture of belonging, our work must be focused and intentional—it is about creating an environment where people can show up with authenticity and have their ideas and perspectives valued.”

Below we have provided a look at two organizations—Management Leadership for Tomorrow and Reboot Representation—that have received initial grants from our $5 million commitment and are helping companies work toward their goals, not just of diversity, but of inclusion as well.

Management Leadership for Tomorrow

The foundation awarded Management Leadership for Tomorrow (MLT) a $847,000 grant to scale the organization’s Career Prep program, which delivers personalized coaching and critical tools to help students of color secure high-trajectory roles in the tech industry. MLT’s Career Prep program provides Black, Latinx and Native American college sophomores with personalized guidance, effective tools and a powerful network to be successful in highly competitive tech internships and early career opportunities. 

MLT works to address underrepresentation in the tech industry by providing talented students with a playbook for successfully navigating the tech ecosystem and connecting them to accelerating opportunities. This year, MLT will increase the number of software engineering students in its Career Prep program by more than 60%, with plans to further boost the number of tech-focused students in the following years.

“As a center for wealth creation, the tech industry’s potential to drive income equality across racial groups is enormous,” said John Rice, founder and CEO at MLT. “This collaboration and support from Cognizant Foundation will enable us to help more students secure careers that provide lasting economic mobility for them and their families.”

Reboot Representation

Black, Latinx and Native American women comprise 18% of the U.S. population, yet they represent only 4% of computing degree recipients—a figure that has decreased in recent years. The foundation joined the Reboot Representation Tech Coalition and awarded a $1.5 million grant to support the coalition’s work to double the number of women of color earning computing degrees by 2025.

“Companies are making headway in diversifying their workforces, but these blanket efforts often fail to significantly impact the hiring of underrepresented women of color into technical roles,” said Dwana Franklin-Davis, CEO at Reboot Representation. “The Cognizant Foundation has been a leader in funding careers in technology for communities across the U.S. We’re excited to work with the foundation to address the barriers that Black, Latinx and Native American women face in attaining computer science degrees and tech careers.”

Reboot Representation recently published lessons learned since its founding in 2018, as it makes grants to organizations, sharing: “We’re learning what works to build identity and belonging in computing. It’s more than technical skill and expertise. It’s mentorship. It’s targeted support. It’s community building. It’s celebration. It’s relationships.”

The Work Ahead

As we make investments in organizations such as MLT and Reboot Representation as part of our $5 million commitment to communities of color, we continue our ongoing efforts to increase racial representation in the tech industry and build diverse pipelines of educators in computer science classrooms across the country.

Further, in addition to convening discussions on equity and economic mobility in workforce funding, our staff have participated in learning labs discussing the Workforce Matters Funders Group’s recent Racial Equity Framework for Workforce Development Funders.

“This past year, I have learned that to further racial equity, we must lead with race and be race explicit within internal processes, policies, goals and metrics. It is important to continually review, revise and learn how to embed racial equity into our daily work,” said Hannah Lee, a director at the foundation. “We made progress last year and look forward to continuing the work and learning alongside our grantees.”

We will continue to provide updates on the organizations we invest in as part of this commitment and our work to expand our own knowledge and ensure we center equity in our grantmaking.

Header photo credit: https://unsplash.com/@claybanks