I have a lot of friends who are keen to teach coding but don’t have information about all the amazing organizations that offer such opportunities. Thanks to the location, there are a lot of opportunities to teach coding in the Bay Area. So I am putting together this list to help folks find what they are looking for. This list is best suited for tech industry professionals and students looking to empower others via technology. There are other great resources like VolunteerMatch that I highly recommend. I am going to list the organizations in no particular order and will share additional information about them if any.
Note: I have personal experience being involved with some of the organizations listed below but not all.
- MissionBit provides computer science courses that expose high school students from underserved and under-represented communities to multiple coding languages. They offer classroom volunteer opportunities (also have one-time event volunteering but that’s rare). As a classroom volunteer, you will be assisting a an instructor in the classroom by helping students 1:1 in a project based coding course. There are multiple locations (all in San Francisco) to choose from and the timing (mornings or evenings) is perfect for folks working in the city.
- Code Tenderloin is a workforce development non profit that aims to secure long term employment for underserved communities in San Francisco. They offer the Code Ramp program to teach the basics of coding to anyone who maybe interested with the end goal of helping folks decide if they want to enter coding more seriously (by joining a coding bootcamp). In the Code Ramp, they offer opportunities as classroom volunteer (weekday evenings) and also as a tutor (working 1-on-1 with students) on weekends. The volunteering locations are in San Francisco.
- Code Now is a non-profit teaching high school students how to solve meaningful problems through coding. Their program has four levels to introduce kids (usually 9th graders) to web design, coding, and how to build your own apps. The first level is a weekend workshop where kids learn the basics of coding by building the front end and back end of a web app over two weekends with the help of volunteers. These weekend workshops happen only twice a year in the Bay Area. The location may vary but it is usually in Oakland or San Francisco.
- Black Girls Code is a not-for-profit organization that focuses on providing technology education for African-American girls. They offer several one-off workshops with a lot of volunteering opportunities. You can check out the list of current opportunities here. The locations are all in Oakland.
- Hackbright Academy is an all women coding bootcamp (for-profit) in San Francisco, CA that offers accelerated software development training. You can signup to mentor a student (about 1 hr/week commitment) and be a useful resource for them as they begin their coding journey. The locations are in San Francisco.
- TEALS is a program that helps high schools build and grow sustainable computer science programs through partnerships between classroom teachers and tech industry volunteers. This is a pretty intense program where volunteers (tech professionals) partner with teachers to teach Computer Science to public school students for an entire school year. The locations are the different partner schools in the area.
- CodeNation equips students in under-resourced high schools with the skills, experiences and connections to create access to careers in technology. They offer opportunities for volunteers to teach web development courses to school students (roughly every week) and the commitment is for an entire school year. The locations are the different partner schools in the area.
- Streetcode Academy is a community-centered tech empowerment program that provides free classes to underserved communities of color. They offer a variety of coding courses targeting different age groups where volunteers can assist the lead instructor. The locations are in East Palo Alto and Menlo Park.
- Techtonica partners with tech companies to offer 6-month tech apprenticeships (with living and childcare stipends) that result in job placements at the end for women in the Bay Area. Volunteers can sign up to be mentors who work 1-on-1 with the mentee that they are matched with. There are also other one-off volunteering opportunities like coming in for a few hours to help the apprentices. The location is in San Francisco.
- #BUILTBYGIRLS helps prepare the next generation of female leaders to have a career in technology. They connect young women (as early as high school) to industry professionals to give them exposure to the tech industry, grow valuable skills and build connections to help them in their career. Their WAVE program allows industry professionals to sign up to be mentor these young women by meeting them regularly (once a month for 3 months) at the mentor’s workplace (or remotely via video conferencing if mentor and mentee are not in the same location). They also offer one-off mentoring opportunities like “Speed mentoring” a lot of young women at large tech events like Techcrunch Disrupt.
- Code for fun exposes students from Kindergarten to High-School to coding in an interactive way through after school programs, camps and in school instruction. They offer volunteering opportunities to teach an after-school class or during a camp. The minimum time commitment is 2 hours per week for an after-school class, and 1 hour for a full week for a camp. They have locations throughout the Bay Area.
- Technovation offers girls around the world the opportunity to learn the skills they need to emerge as tech entrepreneurs and leaders. Every year they invite girls to identify a problem in their community, and then challenge them to solve it. Girls work in teams to build both a mobile app and a business plan to launch that app, supported by mentors and guided by our curriculum. Volunteers can serve as mentors and help guide them through this process. Mentoring requires walking the girls through the curriculum, checking in on progress and overall being a source of support and encouragement through this process. It can be done in-person (close to student locations) or virtually.
- Ada Developer’s Academy is a non-profit, tuition-free coding school for women and gender diverse adults. They focus on serving low income people, underrepresented minorities, and members of the LGBTQIA+ community. There have a variety of volunteering opportunties — private tutor, teaching assistant, industry mentors, mock interviewers etc. They are located in Seattle but it is possible to volunteer virtually for certain roles.
If you know of other amazing organizations in the Bay Area, please mention them in the comments and I will update the list. Thanks!