[Outreach-and-education] Please Vote: Grant for Boston Python Workshop for women and their friends

[Asheesh Laroia]

Dear friends on the Outreach and Education Committee,

I'd like to call a vote on a grant proposal.

The rules of this vote, if I understand them, are:

* > 3/4 of the committee must vote Yes or No or Abstain

* > 1/2 of the people voting must say Yes

I'm looking forward to voting on future proposals within the committee!

Please reply (top-posting is fine) with a "Yes" "No" or "Abstain".

==

Objectives:

* To teach over 200 women Python fundamentals and bring them into
their local programming communities.
* To continue running the successful Boston Python Workshop
with the Boston Python user group, which has gone from 0-3% women at
its events to consistently over 15% due to these workshops.
* To teach 3 new Python user groups how to run high-quality diversity
outreach events by example.

These objectives will be achieved by funding the next 3 Boston Python
Workshops and to bring workshop clones to 3 other cities in the US
within six months of the acceptance of this grant.

Grant timeline: We'd like to run the next Boston workshop by early
December, so ideally this grant proposal would be processed by then.

Grant size: $3300 (see the proposal breakdown below for details)

Background:

The Boston Python Workshop is a free, completely volunteer-driven
introduction to the Python programming language for women and their
friends who have no or limited programming experience. We run the
workshop every 2 months for between 30 and 50 women, and it has run 4
times so far.

Here is our homepage and mission statement:
http://openhatch.org/wiki/Boston_Python_Workshop

Here is a workshop curriculum:
http://openhatch.org/wiki/Boston_Python_Workshop_4
- Friday setup and tutorial:
http://openhatch.org/wiki/Boston_Python_Workshop_4/Friday
- Saturday lecture:
http://openhatch.org/wiki/Boston_Python_Workshop_4/Saturday_lecture
- Saturday projects:
http://openhatch.org/wiki/Boston_Python_Workshop_4/Saturday_projects

And here are some photos from recent workshops:
http://meetup.bostonpython.com/photos/2348311/
http://meetup.bostonpython.com/photos/3717362/

A writeup on lessons learned running the Boston Python Workshop:
https://openhatch.org/blog/2011/lessons-learned-from-the-boston-python-workshop-an-outreach-event-for-women/
which was also invited to be a guest post on GeekFeminism.org;
http://geekfeminism.org/2011/07/02/lessons-learned-from-the-boston-python-workshop-an-outreach-event-for-women/

An important part of our philosophy is a commitment to running the
workshop as part of the local user group. One of our goals is
sustained involvement by our workshop alums in the local Python
community, and one-off diversity events are often plagued by retention
issues.

To address this, the Boston event is run through the Boston Python
user group and we hold a follow-up Project Night through the user
group as well. This gives us a lot of face-time with attendees where
we can construct a concrete roadmap with them for how to keep learning
and practicing the language and stay a part of the community. Thanks
to these efforts, in the last 8 months the workshop has helped the
Boston Python group go from 0-3% women at its events to consistently
over 15%.

The response has been truly incredible, and the workshops fill up
within hours of announcement. Here is what some workshop alums say
about the event:

- "Beautiful. Great. Can't explain, must be experienced."

- "Absolutely incredible! THANK YOU."

- "I've never programmed before and this workshop was a great,
no-pressure way to get started - What an incredible find! Instructors
(volunteers from this meetup group) were dynamic, very knowledgeable
and exceptionally patient; content was thoughtfully put together and
well presented. Starting with the basics of setting up a coding
environment on your laptop, the day and a half agenda was jam-packed.
I was exhausted when it was done, and need lots more practice with
what I've learned so far, but thanks to this great group of people I
am more enthusiastic than ever to keep at it."

Grant proposal breakdown:

We are a free workshop so that we don't turn away women who can't make
the financial commitment or are not yet sure if programming is
something they want to do. We conduct exit surveys for each workshop
which confirm that this is very important to attendees.

The workshop is run by volunteers, we promote the event through free
channels, and we are able to secure free space through local
universities and businesses.

We thus have exactly 2 simple costs:

1) Food.

We need to be able to feed our attendees and volunteers lunch. Even if
it is just cheap pizza, lunch is an important networking opportunity.
It is a chance to talk with our volunteers, who are strong and
accomplished female programmers and thus great role models, about
software engineering as a career. It is also a chance to forge
friendships with other women learning Python, who will be allies as
they continue to learn the language, go through school, make a career
change into programming or IT, etc.

2) Subsidizing travel to bring experienced workshop staff to cities
running their first workshops.

We want this to be a nation-wide phenomenon. We have already helped a
workshop clone run in Philadelphia, and our material has been used
globally for various introductory events, from San Francisco to
Australia. We've accumulated a lot of knowledge about teaching
beginners, teaching women, and doing diversity outreach in general
that is best transferred and practiced together in person. We need to
be able to bring experienced workshop staff into cities that want to
run workshops to train local volunteers and build events that are
lasting successes.

Our estimated costs are:

* $300 per non-local event for travel subsidies for at least 2 people
* $400 per event for food (lunch + drinks + snacks) for a 50 - 60
person workshop (including volunteers)

That means:

* 1 Boston Python Workshop = $400
* 1 non-local workshop = $700

This grant proposal is for 3 Boston workshops and 3 non-local
workshops. Total budget:

3 * 400 + 3 * 700 = $3300

Description of beneficiaries:

The beneficiaries of this grant are numerous:

* Most directly, over 200 women will learn Python fundamentals and
join their local programming communities as empowered, confident
beginners who are excited to continue learning.
* 3 Python user groups will learn how to run high-quality diversity
outreach events.
* Volunteers at the workshops will get experience with public speaking
and teaching technical content. We've even had workshop alums return
to the workshop as staff. This kind of volunteering is a great
stepping stone for getting more women leading talks at user group
events and technical conferences.
* The Python community as a whole will continue to benefit from our
shared, online, Creative Commons-licensed workshop material as we
expand and refine it.

Funds delivery:

We are not an incorporated entity, and the Boston Python Meetup isn't
either, so we don't have a great channel for receiving funds (the
Meetup currently does this through one of the organizer's PayPal
accounts).

If the PSF can allocate and hold the money and reimburse us as we
provide receipts, that's probably the best route for us. If that's not
a good route for the PSF, we'd love to talk about other options.