• by Larissa Faw , September 11, 2020

Black Girls Code is benefiting from pro bono support from two San Francisco Bay Area companies as the non-profit seeks to encourage more girls of color to pursue STEM careers, and to get technology companies to create internship and mentorship opportunities for BGC alumni entering the workforce.

This partnership was formed after hybrid cloud/data warehouse company Yellowbrick Data brainstormed with brand experience consultancy Traction about ways to support change in light of racial and social unrest.

“So many companies are finally waking up to the fact that they need to be part of the solution when it comes to racial justice—but many of them don’t know how,” states Traction CEO Adam Kleinberg, “The Black Lives Matter movement has led to a groundswell of urgency to change the status quo,” he says.

The two companies then came up with the idea to donate advertising space, with Yellowbrick contributing over a quarter million dollars in OOH media to support the campaign.

“Business leaders are experiencing a moment of awakening. They are taking a hard look at the questions they haven’t been asking about their teams, corporate culture, and recruiting practices,” says Kleinberg. “They are looking at their recruiting pipelines and are frustrated because they don’t see any women of color in them. Companies are looking to engage with African-American communities in a sustained way and take meaningful action. BGC can help them do that.”

Traction’s team volunteered to do a strategy workshop (via Zoom) and produced the campaign creative pro bono. "The creative team led by Steve Barretto and Jamie McGinley embraced the voice and vibrant visual design aesthetic that BGC shared with us," adds Kleinberg. The resulting creative features a young woman alongside the headline, “Not if she will change the world, but when,” and inspires businesses to “Change your company. Change the world.”

Yellowbrick’s donated OOH media runs throughout the San Francisco Bay Area, including bus stops, the Caltrain station, and hundreds of bus placements throughout San Francisco and San Mateo Counties.