Huddle Stories, Episode 006: Huddle & Kindwork 💖
This week we wanted to talk about something we’ve never talked about publicly before: We give 1% of our revenue to KindWork, which helps people in underserved communities land jobs in tech.
More on KindWork and their amazing initiative below, as well as: what our members are saying and our next virtual event(s).
Toodles,
Diana Hawk
Head of Community @ Huddle
💖 KindWork & Huddle
KindWork was founded in 2019 by Kate Doyle and Jeanine Mendez, two tech industry veterans who were frustrated by the lack of diversity in the sector.
Jeanine grew up as an undocumented Latina immigrant and managed to be the first in her family to attend college. She subsequently became a hiring manager at a high-growth tech company. Kate has a background as a former NYC special education teacher and used this experience to design a skills training curriculum for diverse learners with poor experiences in the educational system.
They both wished a program like KindWork existed in order to connect talented, low-income, BIPOC young adults with career opportunities in tech, which is how this life-changing initiative was born.
Unlike many tech-training programs, KindWork’s Fellowship prepares participants for roles that do not require advanced coding or STEM skills, removing an additional barrier to success in the tech sector for young people, particularly those without a college degree. KindWork offers free career training, coaching, and job placement support to low-income, under and unemployed young people facing barriers to career-ladder employment.
KindWork’s positive impact is undeniable; 93% of graduates are placed into jobs in tech. The career-ladder roles graduates obtain are overwhelmingly full-time (97%), with average wages of $21.20/hour and 84% including employer-sponsored benefits.
"We are all in this together! Closing the equity gap in tech requires support from across the community. We are so grateful for partners like Huddle who invest in and amplify our mission." - Jeanine Mendez, KindWork Co-Founder
We’re proud to support KindWork- and we hope you check them out and share their mission if it resonates with you!
P.S. Are you looking for diverse and determined talent? Consider joining KindWork's growing network of employer partners. Learn more here.
🥰 Huddle Love
PM & Member Ben Kromnick (website of his current company here):
"Something that made me feel good about Huddle and brought that kick of feeling happy or good was just seeing the cool projects y'all have coming in, like the two Mongo founders. I felt like I'm in good company and surrounded by talented people."
🔗 Let’s Link Up
Virtual:
Come to one of our Huddle Virtual Coworking Sessions: Get a little connection, camaraderie, and accountability in your week! Rsvp here.
✨ First 10 min we share what we’re working on, as well as if anyone is working through a challenge at the moment (Everyone is encouraged to take it to slack/offline after the session if you see someone going through a challenge you can support on, or have been through before!)
✨ Then heads down for 40 min! We’ll mute ourselves and get to it.
✨ Last ten minutes we’ll give everyone a chance to chat and celebrate any wins they’d like and talk out challenges 🙂
We’d love to see you!
🔑 Join The Club
What’s Huddle, you ask? We’re a community of 500+ designers, builders, and creatives that work on startups together. A supportive space where everyone is an entrepreneur — a cool new world where people are free to choose their work, who they work with, and own what’s created. Support + freedom? Well, that’s a hell yeah.
“One part creative club, two parts the best f’n agency for startups ever”
-Mike Saloio, Founder & CEO at Huddle
Startups apply to reserve Huddle Teams for things like MVPs, design help, software engineering, branding, marketing, advisory, and more. We help put the team together and care for all the messy bits - paperwork, legal, taxes, equity, etc. Plus, we host ongoing digital and IRL events to meet other members.
Have founder friends who could use a Huddle? Have them apply here, and write your name as their referral and get 5% commission when their project closes.