Portfolio Opportunity Fund
Digital113
Supporting women’s aspirations to digital careers
Growing a diverse tech community by running free regular programming workshops for minority groups in tech
The Foundation launched it’s Portfolio Opportunity Fund in summer 2024. Through the fund, the Foundation partners with software companies in the Hg portfolio on projects which forward our mission of helping under-represented groups access education and careers in tech.
The Hg portfolio employs around 100,000 individuals. The Foundation is keen to build on the portfolio’s expertise, ideas, and energy to widen the talent pipeline into the sector – and to help turbocharge portfolio companies’ own charitable and access-focussed programmes. To date, seven partnerships have been supported through the fund, totalling £440,000 in grants from The Hg Foundation and leveraging a further £540,000 from portfolio companies.
codebar provides education, training and networking opportunities for members of underrepresented groups in tech. They are a global organization, with 18,385 students across 33 chapters worldwide.
The Hg Foundation will build on the Access Foundation’s existing support for codebar, providing £52,000 in matched funding to grow codebar’s capacity. With new Community Manager and Volunteer Coordinator posts, codebar will double the number of new community members signing up from 2500 to 5000, as well as starting eight new codebar chapters. The posts will also improve delivery quality, increasing programme and volunteer retention, and raising community member satisfaction.
We’re thrilled to have received this grant. It’s a powerful endorsement of the importance of creating inclusive opportunities in tech. This support enables us to expand our free workshops, reach even more underrepresented individuals, and open new doors to learning and growth. We’re deeply grateful for the opportunity to drive meaningful change alongside our incredible community and supporters.
We are delighted to be able to strengthen our support of this fantastic organisation with the generous and significant donation from The Hg Foundation. codebar’s track record for getting people from minority groups into jobs in the tech sector speaks for itself and we look forward to seeing the exciting results which this expansion of their offering will bring.
