Pluralsight, Inc. has announced that its social enterprise, Pluralsight One, is providing its strategic nonprofit partners with over $1 million in immediate cash grants from the Pluralsight One Fund so they have flexible financial capital to respond to the global COVID-19 crisis. Pluralsight One is also providing additional support through product grants, technology strategy development, implementation as well as structured volunteerism. Pluralsight One’s strategic partners that are receiving assistance include the Norweigian Refugee Council (NRC), Year Up, Malala Fund and the Computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA).
“We are deeply grateful for all our partners around the world whose teams are responding to the COVID-19 crisis to ensure they meet the evolving needs of the communities they support and flatten the curve for the world’s most vulnerable,” said Aaron Skonnard, co-founder and CEO of Pluralsight. “From NRC who are launching digital solutions to protect displaced individuals to Malala Fund champions who are advancing tech-enabled solutions for education, they need our support now more than ever. I hope the donor community will continue to act fast and provide nimble capital to power their community partners’ response.”
Pluralsight One is providing an additional $1 million in 2020 emergency grants to strategic partners from the Pluralsight One Fund in the following ways:
NRC — NRC is receiving an immediate cash grant of $250,000 in addition to the scheduled cash grant of $250,000 in 2020 that is part of Pluralsight One’s existing three-year agreement with NRC. Pluralsight One is responding to the extreme urgency and risk that this crisis poses for the 70 million people across the globe that are displaced by conflict. These individuals are living in close proximity with limited health and education resources, facing increasing levels of xenophobia and restrictions to movement as a result of COVID-19. At the same time, COVID-19 is complicating NRC’s global operations and ability to preserve the health and safety of staff while reducing the risk of transmission among medically vulnerable people. The combined grant of $500,000 in 2020 as well as Pluralsight One’s product grant and staff support will help NRC prevent the spread of COVID-19 to refugee camp settings, enable the NRC teams to create digital solutions that serve those who are most vulnerable, and ultimately focus resources on flattening the curve while maintaining critical, life-saving programs and services.
Year Up — Year Up is receiving an immediate cash grant of $250,000 to support program continuity for Year Up’s nationwide network of 4,500 program participants as well as alumni. The grant is designed to provide flexible capital to support the immediate health and education needs of Year Up program participants while adapting opportunities for disadvantaged youth to establish stable career paths. The COVID-19 crisis will continue to disproportionately impact low-income minority communities, and Pluralsight One is working with Year Up to lessen this impact. In addition to the financial support, Pluralsight One has also completed an organization wide implementation of Pluralsight’s tech skills platform for Year Up staff and all 4,500 program participants who can now develop relevant technology skills while working from home.
Malala Fund — Malala Fund is receiving an immediate cash grant of $300,000 to support the work of five Malala Fund Champions across Afghanistan, India, Nigeria and Pakistan in 2020 and 2021. Threats to girls’ education — like poverty, war and gender discrimination — differ between countries and communities. Champions are local educators and activists who understand challenges in their communities and are best placed to identify, innovate and advocate for policy and programmatic solutions. One such Champion is Haroon Yasin in Pakistan who has developed an education app that is enabling digital learning for school-aged children across the country. With Pluralsight One’s support, Haroon can scale his work to reach over 1 million school-aged children whose learning has been disrupted as a result of COVID-19.
CSTA — CSTA is receiving an immediate cash grant of $250,000 to support the development and implementation of digital resources for teachers with a focus on equity and inclusion. Pluralsight One’s support will develop teacher resources that enable learning continuity during COVID-19, scale the CSTA Equity Fellowship to grow and establish an active Equity Fellow Alumni network, continue to build capacity and sustain CSTA’s chapters, and develop rigorous professional development that grows the number of English language learner students enrolled in AP computer science.
In addition to the cash grants to its strategic partners, Pluralsight One Fund is deploying grants of $50,000 each to Utah COVID Fund, Boston COVID Fund and Ireland Community Foundation’s COVID Fund and UN/WHO COVID Fund to support the communities where Pluralsight team members live and work.
