Form3's approach to giving back

We always want to give back each year — the amount we give might change, depending on our profit, and our budgets, but we’ll always give back. It’s a habit we care about building and continuing.

Earlier last year, we formed relationships with two social partners who are non-profit organisations trying to address the gender imbalance in technology. These two partners align with our mission and values, and support causes which we are passionate about. With them, we hope to make the fintech community more inclusive and help people from all backgrounds enter and thrive in the technology space.

We’re delighted to share with you some details of the great organisations we’ve come to work with!  

The amazing partner organisations we’re working with are ReDi School, with a presence in Germany, Denmark and Sweden, and Stemettes, an organisation with a presence in the UK and Ireland. Both partners offer a lot of ways for all of us to get involved regardless of the languages we speak and regardless of how well we code (or not!).

ReDi School is a non-profit tech school for locals and newcomers without access to digital education. They were set up in 2016 after they noticed that refugees in Germany had tech experience from their home countries but don’t have the resources to make use of them in the European job market. The goal of the school is to give minorities an opportunity to develop their coding and tech skills and enter the tech workspace. They do this by offering the students high quality coding and basic computer courses in combination with a unique career program, such as HR summits.

Stemettes is an award-winning social enterprise which works across the UK and Ireland. Their goal is to inspire and support young women and young nonbinary people into Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths careers (known collectively as STEM). The focus here is organising coding events for young girls and women with hopes to encourage girls to go into the tech industry by teaching them from a young age about how fun technology, science and maths can be. With this they are hoping to make the tech space more diverse and empower girls to dominate it!

Since starting this project, we have been able to get involved in multiple different ways.

In August and September 2021, our teams volunteered in a series of CV and mock interview workshops with Stemettes. This was an opportunity for young women interested in STEM to gain one to one support from our volunteers with their CVs and develop their confidence in their interview abilities.

In October 2021 we hosted a Form3 takeover day in the Stemettes half-term program, which over 20 employees signed up for. Our wonderful colleagues joined interactive talks, Instagram live sessions and discussion panels., all with the aim of encouraging women and people from underrepresented groups to consider careers in technology.

During January and February 2022, our team have been a part of a Stemettes initiative to deliver coding workshops to primary schools across the UK.

Additionally, we have implemented a system of donations based on referrals and volunteering sign ups. Employees in all areas of the business at Form3 can get involved to support students with their career planning, review CVs and helping prepare for interviews! Form3 donates 25€ per sign up. Both our partners also look for volunteers to teach coding lessons, and Form3 also donates 25€ per sign up. Moreover, Form3 also donates 25€ to our social partners for each candidate referred who passes our initial Talent Team screening call.

In Q3 of 2021, we raised 1,300 € in volunteering signups and 275 € in referrals. In Q4 of 2021, we raised 2,20 € in volunteering signups and 400 € in referrals. We also made an ad hoc donation of 2,550 €!

We’re honoured to be able to support these wonderful organisations, and hope you’ll take some time to research the wonderful work they do. There’s a lot more work to be done!