Companies Bring Social Impact to STEM and Business Workplace Diversification
ST. LOUIS, MO (November 10, 2015) — INROADS, Inc. — a multicultural nonprofit whose mission is leadership development, career preparation and creating opportunity for talented, underserved youth — recently announced its Top 10 Strategic Corporate Partners.
“Proactive and progressive companies build a natural ecosystem of talent to fill their workplace needs for the future,” said Forest Harper, President and CEO of INROADS, Inc. in a recent article. “By doing so with INROADS, the Top 10 are making a social and economic impact beyond their own companies, transforming lives and communities.”
Selected based on the number of INROADS internships they sponsored this year, the 2015 INROADS Top 10 Strategic Corporate Partners are:
- United Technologies Corporation
- Travelers
- Kaiser Permanente
- MetLife
- PricewaterhouseCoopers
- Blue Cross and Blue Shield
- JC Penney
- Liberty Mutual Insurance Company
- KPMG International
- Wells Fargo & Company
Increasingly, these Top 10 companies are looking to INROADS for diverse STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) talent. Over the past five years, the Top 10 have filled nearly 40 percent of their INROADS internships with STEM majors. In so doing, they have had a measurable effect on STEM diversity in the workplace: 47 percent of their interns were women, 40 percent were African American and 25 percent were Hispanic/Latino.
“When one considers the diversity numbers and percentages reported by leading technology companies — fewer than 100 diverse employees, less than two percent — the five year aggregates of INROADS’ Top 10 are astounding,” notes Harper.
“Finding and developing talented, economically disadvantaged youth — often the first in their families to attend college — has a dual impact: Improving lives and communities, while increasing the country’s proficiency in science and math to mitigate the projected shortage of 1 million technology workers.”
About INROADS
Founded in 1970, INROADS develops and places talented underserved youth in business and industry, preparing them for corporate and community leadership that effects community renewal and social change and elevates economic status and quality of life. INROADS has placed students in over 127,000 paid internships throughout its history, and graduated over 27,000 alumni into fulltime professional and leadership positions with over 1,000 corporate partners. Currently, INROADS serves nearly 1,500 interns and 230 corporate clients. To learn more, visit www.INROADS.org.