BofA Program Provides $200,000 to Help Provide the Critical Skills, Networks and Access to Historically Excluded Students in Pursuing Undergraduate STEM Majors and Careers.
AUSTIN, TX – Code2College, a non-profit preparing historically underestimated students with in-demand tech skills, has been named a 2022 Bank of America Neighborhood Builder® awardee for their work in the Austin community to empower minority and low-income students with professional skills training, coding instruction, mentorship, professional network-building, college access and employment opportunities.
The organization receives a $200,000 grant over two years, comprehensive leadership training for the executive director and an emerging leader on topics ranging from increasing financial sustainability, human capital management and strategic storytelling, joins a network of peer organizations across the U.S., and gets the opportunity to access capital to expand their impact. The Neighborhood Builders program continues to be the nation’s largest investment into nonprofit leadership development.
“The reactive nature of hiring and staff reduction in the technical workforce isn’t unique to Central Texas, but it is more pronounced given the concentration of tech industry employers in the region,” says Matt Stephenson, CEO and Co-Founder of Code2College. “Code2College is providing an innovative workforce development solution by leveraging STEM volunteers to develop the next generation of diverse, technical talent. The Bank of America Neighborhood Builder’s grant will help Code2College develop more industry-relevant curricula and place even more Central Texas high school students into paid, software engineering (and other technical) internships.”
Code2College will deploy the Neighborhood Builders grant to scale its innovative workforce development solution that creates pathways into STEM undergraduate majors and careers for historically underestimated high school students – who mostly identify as Black, Latinx or girls – through after-school and Summer programming. The organization is kicking off its Texas 2,000 Initiative, which is focused on placing an additional 2,000 Texas high school students into paid, software engineering and other technical internships by 2026. This upcoming Summer, Code2College will place at least 200 Austin area high school students into paid, technical summer internships, and this will increase to over 300 annually by Summer 2024.
As a part of the Neighborhood Builder award, Norielle Aurelio has been named an Emerging Leader by Bank of America. Norielle was hired as an Assistant Director in July 2019 and since that time has owned a number of critical workstreams including student recruitment, program management, instructional design and volunteer training. In addition, Norielle has developed and led several new initiatives including the Vision 2024 program focused on developing and placing Black and Latina girls into STEM roles, as well as the Code2College Technically 200 podcast, which features inspiring stories from Black and Latina women in STEM. Norielle has been promoted twice during her time at Code2College and is currently the Director of Internships, a program which places hundreds of high school students into internships annually with total summer wages that exceeded $1M in Summer 2022. The emerging leader program will give her a platform to build her leadership skills to continue to grow within Code2College.
“As the tech industry continues to grow in Austin, the need for talent – especially diverse talent – in STEM remains significant in our region. More importantly, our local students need to be equipped with the skills, training and experience they need to enhance job readiness and equip them to successfully take on the jobs available in the market,” said David Bader, president, Bank of America Austin. “Code2College has a proven model to help ensure student success while also uplifting underserved communities through workforce development, and Bank of America is honored to be part of their success story.”
In Austin, 24 nonprofits have been selected as Neighborhood Builders since 2008, with the bank investing $4 million into these local organizations.
The invitation-only program is highly competitive, and organizations are selected by a committee composed of community leaders and past Neighborhood Builders honorees.
Through 2021, Bank of America has invested over $280 million in 50 communities through Neighborhood Builders, partnering with more than 1,400 nonprofits and helping more than 2,800 nonprofit leaders strengthen their leadership skills. Neighborhood Builders is just one example of how Bank of America deploys capital in communities, builds cross-sector partnerships, and promotes socioeconomic progress as part of its approach to responsible growth.