This is a sample proposal you are welcome to use and customize for approaching companies you think might be interested in sponsoring Outreachy.

• If you are approaching a larger company that has not sponsored internships with your organization before, please check with Cindy, Karen, Tony, Sarah, Bryan, and Marina at outreachy-admins AT gnome DOT org first to make sure we coordinate any efforts to approach the same company.

• Please be sure to fix up the e-mail address in the Proposal section below before sending this as an e-mail.

== Background ==
 
Outreachy - http://outreachy.org - is a project hosted by Software Freedom Conservancy starting May 2015 and the successor of the Outreach Program for Women, which has been organized by the GNOME Foundation since 2010. Outreachy offers remote, mentored, paid internships to people from groups underrepresented in Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) with FOSS projects twice a year.

The program has helped 47 FOSS organizations mentor 368 interns. The last round had 46 interns. The Linux kernel, OpenStack, Wikimedia, and Mozilla are some of the organizations that offer internships as part of the program.

Red Hat, Intel, Mozilla, and the OpenStack Foundation are some of the sponsors of the program. FOSS organizations and supporting companies are invited to offer internships or sponsor the program for May - August 2017 round.

This round is open internationally to women (cis and trans), trans men, and genderqueer people. Additionally, it's open to residents and nationals of the United States of any gender who are Black/African American, Hispanic/Latin@, American Indian, Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian, or Pacific Islander. Outreachy plans to expand to more participants from underrepresented backgrounds in the future.

Outreachy is very competitive, and applicants are required to make a contribution to the project they are interested in during the application process. The accepted participants usually have intermediate level skills. The internships allow them to build experience contributing to FOSS, which is highly valued in the technology industry and makes them stand-out candidates for further opportunities.

== Proposal ==

The sponsor can choose to support the program at one of these game-changing levels:

 * Ceiling Smasher - $52,000
 * Equalizer - $32,500
 * Promoter - $19,500
 * Includer - $6,500

The sponsorship per intern is $6,500. The sponsor can choose to be a general sponsor of the program, with funds going towards the strongest applicants across all the organizations that participate and towards coordination and promotion work for the program. Alternatively or in addition, the sponsor can support a particular FOSS organization already participating in the program or bring on a new organization it has an interest in with its funds. Any FOSS organization that has a public community of contributors and is not too tightly tied to any one company can offer internships as part of the program.

The funding commitment needs to be made by February 9 for supporting FOSS organizations joining the program or by March 30 for general funding or for supporting already-participating FOSS organizations. Software Freedom Conservancy will invoice for the committed funds in December and should receive them soon thereafter. Software Freedom Conservancy will then take care of sending the stipend to the interns in three installments.

Supporting the program is an effective way of improving diversity in FOSS and exposing the your organization's brand to new talent. Please contact organizers of the program Cindy Pallares-Quezada, Karen Sandler, Tony Sebro, Sarah Sharp, Bryan Smith, and Marina Zhurakhinskaya at an alias outreachy-admins AT gnome DOT org with any questions and for further discussion.

== Motivation ==
 
Only 11% of respondents in the 2013 FOSS survey and 12% of Google Summer of Code participants are women. The diversity data for the U.S. released by many tech companies shows that many of them only have 1-3% Black and 2-4% Hispanic employees in technical roles, while the population of the U.S. is 13% Black and 17% Hispanic. Other groups underrepresented in FOSS include people from disadvantaged social-economic backgrounds and people in certain geographic locations. Outreachy provides its participants with a focused opportunity to gain experience in contributing to FOSS, which they might have felt discouraged from pursuing before or didn't know how to get started with. It helps both people who have CS education and people interested in switching to technology at a later point in their career or without going to college become FOSS contributors.

By supporting the Outreachy internships, participating companies are working upstream and improving the diversity of the FOSS community. In total, of 368 past Outreachy participants, 66 had full-session talks on FOSS topics at conferences and 52 found employment or contract work with sponsoring organizations. Three past participants have organized local technology initiatives: Chicagoans Hacking on GNOME, the Nairobi Dev School, and Women in Free Software - India. Many find the program life-changing, as it introduces them to something they become passionate about and opens the door to new opportunities.

For the May 2016 round, 46 participants were accepted and over 100 applicants worked with a mentor to complete a required contribution. All these applicants become FOSS contributors in the process of applying for the program, and many who are not accepted stick around to apply for the next round or pursue other FOSS opportunities.

== Sponsorship Pet Internship Details ==

The sponsorship per intern is $6,500, which includes $5,500 stipend, $500 travel allowance, and $500 administrative fee for the program. The stipend amount is the same as for Google Summer of Code. Providing $500 of travel funding per intern helps bring participants to conferences to meet their mentors and build on the relationships they have with their organizations. The administrative fee is used to cover bank fees for intern payments and to support the resources of Software Freedom Conservancy needed for administering and growing the program.