As with all rebirths, ColorStack’s transformation was out of my control. It was much bigger than my ego, aspirations, and devotion to this cause. When I first started ColorStack, I was a computer science student (class of 2020) at Cornell with a strong sense of ambition, self-possession, and resilience that was ingrained in me by Black-Caribbean immigrant parents. I entered a prestigious institution determined to succeed, and the challenges my fellow Black and Brown peers faced in computer science moved me to the core.
Then I met Rami, ColorStack’s Head of Engineering, and my best friend. Together, Rami and I led the Underrepresented Minorities in Computing (URMC) organization at Cornell, where we provided peer support, mentorship, and a sense of community—the very foundation of ColorStack. In 2020, we started the organization with just a few hundred members—now, I come to you five years later with 16,000 members around the U.S. representing over 1,000 colleges and universities.
How did we do it? I can give you the impressive metrics, tangible outcomes, and the testimonials, but truly, it was through an unwavering belief that we can build the future in the way we think it should be. Though my faith never wavered, I would be lying if I didn’t share that believing in the impossible required hard work, affirmation from my loved ones, and consistency without instant reward.
This year was glorious, and it was difficult. Under the current administration, our commitment to this work has resulted in many nos, some yeses, and a few not nows. And we are not alone in this, as many fellow non-profits who want what’s best for their communities endure the same. We helped change the lives of over 16,000 Black and Latinx students in just five years. It is that fact alone that keeps us doing this work. Witnessing the stories of our students gives us the momentum and tenacity to aim for more than double that amount by 2030.
Join us as we share how we accomplished this between the fiscal year of June 30, 2024 to June 30, 2025, how you were a part of it, and how you can build a world where Black and Brown innovation is at the forefront. Thank you for giving us the fortitude to see what is possible—we look forward to surprising ourselves even more.
With gratitude,
According to the U.S. census, Black and Latinx people make up 34% of the U.S. population. Black and Latinx students make up less than 20% of Computer Science graduates and less than 10% of the software engineering workforce.
With poverty disproportionately affecting Black, Latinx, and indigenous communities in the U.S., Black and Latinx computer science students often lack the tools and resources for professional and educational development.
Once they enter the workforce, the underrepresentation within their workplaces often leads to isolation, imposter syndrome, and low retention rates. While research shows that diversity yields stronger products, the challenge of underrepresentation remains.
To meet the dire need for community, ColorStack continues to be one of the fastest-growing computer science safe havens for Black and Latinx students in North America. ColorStack’s solution is two-fold: to diversify the tech workforce through our corporate partnerships, and to develop confident, skilled, and creative Black and Latinx innovators.
We exist to increase the number of Black and Latinx Computer Science graduates that go on to launch rewarding technical careers.
We envision a future where Black and Latinx technologists are at the forefront of innovation.
ColorStack empowers 16,000+ members with resources like career fairs, networking, and mentorship, plus products like Oyster and a Slack community. Over half of our members secure full-time tech roles post-graduation.
In our third Census, we received invaluable feedback from our members about the community, resources, and opportunities we provide. While we seek feedback from our members throughout the year, the Census is our fundamental practice of measuring the impact and sustainability of our solutions.
Our Census goes beyond attaining data. We also gain clarity on who is part of our growing community of skilled and workforce-ready professionals. These professionals show a promising future: people of color, despite their current underrepresentation in the tech ecosystem, are poised to reshape the landscape by their expertise.
Over 90% of our members major in computer science, computer engineering, information science, information technology, data science, or software engineering.
Since last year, we’ve increased our membership to over 16,100 (70% increase in FY 2025) and representing 1,606 schools in the U.S. and Canada (an increase of 756 in FY 2025).
& Our Programs
The “how” of ColorStack is dynamic, strategic, and, most importantly, sustainable. We define sustainable as our solution's ability to endure shifts in the political, social, and economic landscape. In just our fifth year, we’ve witnessed firsthand the consistent impact of connecting our students to academic support, resources, opportunities, and communities. Through our five initiatives, we ensure our members have access and resources to thrive academically and economically by:
Facilitating corporate partner to member and peer to peer mentorship
Hosting over 50 annual virtual events
Distributing $400k+ in direct support
Designing Oyster, our open-source member engagement portal
Supporting a network of 60+ student-led ColorStack chapters
We offer soft-touch guidance, providing tools and community to empower members in their technical careers. We believe in providing access that can make all the difference in someone’s life, not acting as saviors.
Our student-led university chapters, official ColorStack sub-organizations, empower Black and Latinx technologists with leadership skills and autonomy. As our network grows, so does the need for supportive hubs across the U.S.
70 chapters with 3,600 national members (an 80% increase compared to last year); 27 chapters created within the last fiscal year.
The Family Fund builds member confidence and agency by providing financial aid to low-income Black and Latinx ColorStackers, removing barriers to professional development and networking. This year, we distributed $439,000, a $165,000 decrease from last year’s $604,000.
120,000.00 to send members to tech conferences such as AfroTech, SHPE, NSBE, and our very own, Stacked Up Summit.
$110,000 in aid distributed across 71 members to support tuition, housing, and school supplies for postsecondary success.
Despite this year’s loss of funding, which led to a decrease in our Family Fund dollars, we remained true to our mission. Although we had to sun-set the Family Fund on June 30, 2025, this decision has shown us how much our members trust the community and resources we provide for them––encouraging us to remain steadfast amidst headwinds. Looking ahead, we plan to explore new revenue streams and decentralize our impact to revamp the Fund when capacity allows.
Slack is the home of ColorStack. At first glance, it is an ordinary digital messaging platform; but for us, it is where our members make each other feel seen. In these channels, members share opportunities, offer support during challenges, and cheer each other on.
This year, our members' engagement was through the roof:
The significant rise in Slack engagement this year was definitely an internal topic of discussion. Slack is an expensive platform, and it is a space our members deeply cherish. As we navigated internal organizational shifts, the affordability of the platform, and our members’ needs, we recognized the profound impact a potential platform change was having on our members. Still, we continue to move, strategize, and evaluate how to best curate the spaces our members call home.
Oyster, our exclusive in-house member portal, offers an enhanced ColorStack community experience beyond Slack. It includes resume/company reviews, a resource database, and a member directory.
monthly active visitors
This year, we sought to take Oyster to the next level. As we continue to develop the tool, it is important for us to have Oyster reflect the needs of our members. The feedback that is shared in multiple Slack channels and through our product-member ambassador, Tomas Salgado, is crucial to our ongoing implementation. To continue meeting our members where they’re at, we developed four new features:
Expanding our member-led #community-compensation Slack channel, we created an offer database where members can submit anonymously and view both internship and FT offers. This feature can strengthen our members' salary-negotiation skills and highlight the importance of salary transparency.
Our members are now able to efficiently request mock interviews, resume reviews, or career advice from their ColorStack peers.
With our AI tool, our members can now get instant feedback on their resumes.
Our members can now ask a question to our chatbot and get an instant answer based on our entire Slack history (>436k public messages). This lets us leverage our most valuable asset: community-based knowledge sharing.
Our free virtual and in-person events offer a safe space for members to network and interview with recruiters from leading tech companies. These highly anticipated events build community and allow members to see technologists who look like them, affirming their potential for similar success.
Two career fair events in fall 2024 and spring 2025, which had a combined attendance of 2,932.
Hosted the last Friday of every month with our charismatic host, Michelleadonna, our Fam Fridays are community gatherings that center career readiness and professional development. This past year, we hosted 9 Fam Fridays with a total of 1,326 combined attendees.
8 in-person events with corporate sponsors such as Atlassian, Reboot Representation, Dropbox, eBay, Figma, Reddit, Morgan Stanley & Susquehanna
Winter Break 25’ Hackathon, with 50 member participants and 20 project submissions.
ColorStack thrives on peer-to-peer mentorship. This year, our professional mentorship program continued, with volunteer software engineers guiding members in open-source development and career advancement.
With 87% of post-program survey completion, 100% of surveyed mentees reported finding the experience both impactful and valuable.
If I were to describe this program experience in one sentence, it would be something along the lines of "learning from the future version of yourself" because of the fact that I was able to gain so many tips and advice from someone who has walked the same road as me.
Being able to have a real conversation with my mentor about system design — a topic I wasn’t confident in at all — made me realize I actually know more than I give myself credit for. It was a confidence boost and a reminder that I’m more capable than I sometimes think.
& Our Quinny Celebration
This year, we unapologetically made a tremendous deal out of becoming 5-years-old because we deserved it. As a Black-led organization, the 5-year milestone is significant. With the racial funding gap affecting Black-led non-profits in a myriad of ways, five years means resilience, the sustainability of our solutions, and a strong team that gives us a reason to keep going.
To honor this chapter, we celebrated our fifth anniversary in NYC at the Panorama Room. Looking over the East River, we reflected alongside our members, partners, and loved ones on everything it took to get us here––weeks of strategizing events, endlessly evaluating feedback from our members, and many, many, email exchanges. Beyond celebration, we took this milestone as an opportunity to launch our first major donor campaign, exceeding our goal of $50K. This set the tone for the future of ColorStack, creating opportunities for our supporters, alumni, and champions, to invest in the next five years of innovation.
One of our values is to obsess over the details. Looking at even the smallest details is a practice that requires intentionality. We approach our finances with precision and care because we believe that a budget tells the story of an organization - what we value and where we choose to invest. As you can see, most of our expenses go towards our community, prioritizing enriching the lives of our members.
Please note: these numbers are based on unaudited financials as of the time of this report's publishing.
& The Generous Allies
Our corporate and philanthropic partners have been instrumental in our momentum. Thanks to these allies, abundant resources nourish our community with mentorship, programming, and tools that increase the confidence of Black and Latinx computer science students.
& The Hands in “All Hands”
In corporate speak, an “All Hands” meeting refers to an organization-wide meeting of team updates. At ColorStack, our weekly All Hands are more than that––it is where we connect with each other beyond the work, reminding us why we continue to show up authentically for our future of Black and Latinx innovators. Our playground of ideas comes from a team of former engineers, recruiters, and strategists.
Hear from our team on what grounded us in sustaining our joy for creating opportunity.
& The ColorStack Champions
ColorStack’s Board of Directors consists of innovators from the tech ecosystem, entertainment industry, and higher education. Our board members are one of ColorStack’s strongest advocates––offering their strategic expertise in the face of victories and headwinds. This year, we’ve had the absolute honor to welcome three new board members that pushed us forward to where we are.
& How You Can Help
To us, gratitude is the essence of impact; it is deeper than a simple “thank you”. When ColorStack gives thanks, we are holding your engagement, cheers, and support with fierce care. Gratitude is what got us here––by taking your affirmation seriously, we reached a milestone of five years, making our mark on the lives of over 16,000 Black and Brown students.
At ColorStack, we honor “leading with empathy” as a value that reminds us that doing this work isn’t always easy. Extending grace and generosity to our peers is crucial in building community, trust, and a practice of continuous gratitude. We thank you for leading with that same empathy to engage with us, support us, and champion us.
It is not love if we don’t challenge you, and we challenge you to make a direct impact by: