Giving Compass' Take:

• Dan Mantz describes several ways in which nonprofit organizations can help engage more girls in STEM to broaden the pool of candidates for the future workforce. 

• How can donors make an effort to support or expand STEM programs and facilitate partnerships between educators and nonprofits? 

• Learn about how donors can support STEM education.

A 2017 study found that the number of patents filed related to the Fourth Industrial Revolution increased by 54% over three years. This will inevitably create more jobs in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields. More so, nonprofit leaders play a powerful role by supporting female engagement through hands-on learning and after-school workshops to help improve workplace diversification and inclusion in STEM careers.

Although many nonprofits are empowering student innovators, it’s imperative that more nonprofits join the mission to ensure our future workforce can compete in a global economy.

To prepare for these rapid changes and future workforce challenges, we need to engage a wide-ranging, diversified set of learners. We need to rethink how we teach students so they can learn the technical skills for our industries and the soft skills, such as collaboration and critical thinking, that are already in high demand in the workforce.

Nonprofits should support critical development points through a student’s academic career.

Girl Powered, a global movement created by my nonprofit and VEX Robotics with support from Google offers free workshops that encourage girls to seek more STEM opportunities. Over two days, girls learn how to code and build robots alongside educators and engineers in a fun environment.

So, let’s teach these students -- our future leaders -- how to think differently so they can solve complex problems by connecting project-based classroom lessons to hands-on career development training. This requires more businesses and nonprofits to work more closely with educators. Here are a few approaches to consider:

  1. Help schools retool STEM curriculum.
  2. Create hands-on, skills-based challenges in and out of the classroom.
  3. Widen access to STEM education in underserved communities.

Read the full article about supporting girls in STEM by Dan Mantz at Forbes.