Marcy Lab provides recent high school graduates ages 18-24 from East New York and Brownsville, Brooklyn with an alternative pathway to high-growth technology careers in software engineering. The Software Engineering Fellowship is a year-long program that teaches the fundamentals of programming and computer science, paired with a project-based curriculum that applies these fundamentals in a real-world context. The classroom-based training is followed by a three-month paid apprenticeship where fellows apply their skills, either as part of a real engineering team or by working on an open-source software project. With three senior staff members, Marcy Lab lacks the internal capacity to serve more youth. Currently, each staff member performs multiple tasks, and they are stretched too thin to provide the same high-quality programming to greater numbers of youth. Marcy Lab’s proposed capacity-building plan is to hire a development associate to manage all aspects of fundraising, including researching prospective funders, writing proposals, and overseeing administration and reporting for grants. This will allow the executive director to use his time to focus on programming and revenue strategies that will allow the organization to diversify its finances, grow, and serve more youth.
This grant will support fundraising, development, and capacity-building at Marcy Lab.
