Develop a Marketing Campaign to Recruit Program Participants

We're looking for a volunteer to help us raise funds, save time and be more strategic in our Fundraising. I've never taken a salary in 7 years and all of our tech mentors are volunteers. I haven't been able recently even to offer an honorarium. Our program participants (age 7 to 17 coding ninjas) attendance and technical mentors volunteerism is inconsistent. We also need a budget to market our programming, attracting new and reduce attrition of ninjas and tech mentors.

Philly CoderDojo has hosted monthly 2-hour coding dojos in-person for 5 years prior at schools, churches, universities and libraries. We transitioned to bi-monthly and summer monthly coding dojos online via zoom for one hour the past 4 school terms since covid. It has been challenging because we don’t have that same opportunity to reach out to local avenues to fund and market our free coding dojos.

We need your help, the lack of funding isn't sustainable as I've been bootstrapping for the past few years. It is impacting the organization in various ways, however being remote should offer an opportunity to attract sponsors not just local to Philadelphia. Now we attract youth more broadly nationally as long as ‘coding ninjas’ can attend in the 11:00am EST time zone.

At Philly CoderDojo, we empower youth (our ninjas) to become creators, not just consumers, of technology by developing their coding skills. Our mission is to bridge the digital skills gap and create a diverse pipeline for tech jobs. Our free program ensures all children, regardless of background, can access high-quality STEM education.

Driven by the urgent issues of poverty, educational disparities, and a tough job market, we provide a pathway to success through tech education. By teaching coding and computational thinking, we aim to uplift youth from underserved communities and break cycles of poverty.

At Philly CoderDojo, we’re shaping the future of tech education, fostering critical thinking, problem-solving, and creativity. We promote participation in tech competitions, science fairs, and entrepreneurship, paving the way for future achievements. Through coding, we nurture innovation and creativity, inspiring the next generation of tech leaders!

We have refreshed and updated our website and began using Google Workspace and have utilized a Mailchimp email campaign. We have leveraged Facebook Ads and Eventbrite but have sadly allowed our social media presence to lag.

By the end of the project we hope to have a better, more substantial and consistent impact, a broader reach and audience enabling us to fundraise better demonstrating to our sponsors a return-on-investment for their corporate/public responsibilities. If we have new sponsors we might also be able to cover expenses and compensate volunteers with a stipend/ honorarium and/or hire staff. Our Taproot volunteer(s) will help us meet our goals and not be bogged down struggling with a less efficient online presence and marketing and communications medium. Thank you!