Although Lumity has been around for 30 years, you may not have heard of us before now. We started as the IT Resource Center providing technology consulting and training to nonprofits as well as hosting NPO.net, Chicago's most active nonprofit job board. In 2007 we joined forces with the Nonprofit Finance Center to become Lumity. In the past few years, we’ve added even more great programs and services that have made us a force in the Chicago technology community.
In 2011, we teamed up with NPower to bring The Community Corps to Chicago. This is a volunteer matching portal that connecst skilled professionals with a school or nonprofit that needs help with a specific project. No more stacking food on shelves or passing out flyers when you want to give back to your community; instead, you can put your web design, data managing or technology assessment skills to good use.
In addition to volunteer matching, we work to empower the nonprofit community, as well as provide job and technology training to the community, but we noticed a gap that still existed in the technology world: Chicago’s youth. It’s expected that by 2018, there will be 1.2 million unfilled jobs in the technology sector. There’s a great need to get students interested in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) and keep them in school to pursue these careers.
Using The Community Corps and our already strong connections with Chicago’s technology professionals, we have launched the STEM Collaboration. Through real-world projects, guest speakers and career site visits, we bring STEM professionals to the students of Chicago’s public high schools to spark interest and motivate the students to explore their options post-graduation.
To see how you can get involved in shaping the STEM world of tomorrow, visit our website www.lumity.org/stem. We will also be sharing more about the STEM Collaboration and our progress at our Annual Dinner. More on that coming soon!
