How Techbridge Girls Helps Girls from Marginalized Communities Access Quality STEM Education

For over twenty years, Techbridge Girls (TBG) has worked to equip Black, Indigenous (BIPOC) and all girls of color and gender expansive youth with the tools to achieve economic mobility through a thriving STEM career. By providing “educational gatekeepers,” like after-school teachers, with STEM curricula, rigorous training and pre-kitted materials, TBG delivers meaningful STEM experiences to bolster girls’ interest in and access to high-paying jobs. Serving more than 10,000 girls each year, this nonprofit uses Docusign eSignature to facilitate partnerships with out-of-school-time programs and to protect the organization’s intellectual property.

At the start of the pandemic, Techbridge Girls’ in-person events and lessons were significantly impacted by the new social-distancing standards. Using Docusign eSignature, TBG not only adapted to the demands of a global health crisis, but, by employing digital signatures, it also improved the efficiency and accessibility of their services. With Docusign, Techbridge Girls is able to :

• Automate the process of securing agreements with partners

• Gather electronic signatures on intellectual property documents

• Maintain cohesive branding across their digital contracts

The change to these three processes is one reason Techbridge Girls is flourishing and reaching more girls than ever before. 

Increasing access to economic empowerment with e-signature

For Techbridge Girls, inspiring a love of STEM starts with supplying out-of-school (OST) time educators with high-quality STEM lessons and resources. Partnerships with schools and other educational organizations form the backbone to uplift girls from marginalized communities and open the door to possibility. While simple in premise, these partnerships involve a lot of administrative paperwork for an already stretched educator.

Just as the COVID-19 pandemic challenged TBG to take their program packages virtual, it also gave them the opportunity to streamline their agreement processes. Techbridge Girls uses Docusign eSignature to simplify agreements with out-of-school time programs—enabling them to both save time and expand their reach. 

For nonprofits like TBG, any way they can save resources and ensure their girls and educators can remove the paperwork barriers to getting to the fun and engaging STEM learning, it's a win for everyone. As TBG’s Vice President of Growth and Strategic Partnerships, Meeta Sharma-Holt, attests, “there’s a way that Docusign enables us to automate those processes that saves a lot of time and money for us.” 

Instead of manually uploading and filing partner paperwork, program partners let Docusign automate these tasks for them, allowing OST educators to spend more time doing what they came to do: helping girls towards financially-secure futures.

And now that TBG’s lessons can be delivered either in-person or online, Docusign eSignature helps Techbridge Girls keep their programs proprietary. By facilitating the easy signing of intellectual property contracts, TBG can continue to be a resource for BIPOC girls and gender expansive youth seeking to pursue their STEM aspirations and contribute their brilliance to the STEM revolution while protecting its IP that has taken 20-years to build and cultivate.

Enabling smoother agreements across a national organization

Due to the success of their Docusign implementations, TBG is planning to expand their use of eSignatures to additional contract processes. From photo releases to mission statement agreements, TBG families and volunteers can use eSignatures to sign digital documents on mobile devices, from virtually anywhere. 

“When we work in marginalized communities, we always have to be cognizant of their access to technologies,” says Sharma-Holt. In a community short on PCs and tablets, but a high prevalence of smartphones, the Docusign mobile application allows TBG to obtain digital signatures from signers’ phones. A quick text message with instructions guides Techbridge Girls through the intuitive signing process.

Making it easier for nonprofits to deliver on their missions 

As Techbridge Girls creates access to its materials for out-of-school time programs nationwide, Docusign’s flexibility enables all TBG documents to have a unified branded appearance, and support the nonprofit’s scaling efforts. As TBG expands its reach, Docusign eSignature is here for them—ensuring they have the agreement support, security, and ease to connect STEM volunteers to girls striving for a better and more economically-stable future.

Learn more about how Docusign can help nonprofits maximize impact, minimize costs and speed workflows.

Register to watch our recent webinar, Nonprofits’ Stories on Mission Delivery with Docusign.