A little over a week ago, one of Uber’s attempts to do damage control over its spoilt corporate image backfired, when its donation of $125,000 to Black Girls Code was turned down. Had Uber successfully donated to the organization, it would have killed two birds with one stone; proven it has no male chauvinism culture by promoting a women in tech empowerment movement and show it supports diversity at the work place by supporting a Black community empowerment drive.
As you can remember, Uber had to ‘force the resignation’ of its former CEO Travis Kalanic as a corporate move to clean up its image following allegations of sexual harassment and a culture of male chauvinism at the organization. As far as achieving that through the $125k donation to the Black Girls Code, that move completely failed when the Kimberly Bryant (Black Girls Code founder) turned down Uber’s generous donation.
Bryant told TechCrunch, they as an organization decided to turn down the offer following a layered decision. In part, she said, “I’ve been open to the notion that they can transform themselves. Yet their past history and ‘political’ nature of maneuvering is and was troubling.”
Not long after the news broke out that Black Girl Code turned down Uber donation, the tech community mobilized and stepped in to donate to the organization. On Saturday, Kristy Tillman, the Head of Communication Design at Slack donated $1,000 and tweeted out the screenshot.
It only takes 124 more of us to mount up a grand for @BlackGirlsCode to get them to 125K
And I know enough of you can afford to do so…. pic.twitter.com/soQJF8EhgM
— Kristy T (@KristyT) August 26, 2017
People and companies in the tech community poured onto the donation stream to Black Girls Code PayPal account. At the time of writing this, TechCrunch puts the PayPal donation to the organization standing at least $154,000.
The total donation, however, will be higher once Black Girls Code also accounts for the funds it is getting through employer matching among other sources.
“We are still getting information to folks for matching donations, gifts from donor-advised funds, and even stock transfers. So it’s hard to gather a hard number right now,” said Bryant while addressing TechCrunch.