Case Study: Juneteenth Conference celebrates Black excellence in tech with Open Collective

Celebrating Black Excellence in Tech Juneteenth Conference & a Tech Apprenticeship Pipeline

The Juneteenth Conference, an initiative to showcase Black excellence in technology, was conceived to create a celebratory and impactful event amidst a period of social unrest. Its founder, Michael Brown, faced the challenge of rapidly organizing a virtual conference with a diverse speaker panel and transparently managing the funds it raised to ensure public accountability. To meet this need, they turned to the vendor Open Collective for its financial platform.

Open Collective provided a transparent fiscal hosting solution, allowing every donation and expense to be publicly tracked. This built crucial trust with donors by ensuring complete accountability for all funds. The solution enabled the conference to successfully raise approximately $13,000, which was then matched by a donor, effectively doubling their resources. This financial foundation supported a massively successful event that featured over 20 speakers and peaked at over 18,000 concurrent attendees, demonstrating the viability of finding diverse tech talent.

Juneteenth Conference

Michael Brown

Juneteenth Conference