The GNOME community strives to provide a free desktop for everyone, which certainly includes women users and contributors. Yet, GNOME has relatively few women contributors. Out of about a hundred Google Summer of Code proposals GNOME receives each year, few, if any, proposals are from women candidates. The Women's Summer Outreach Program in 2006 and the Outreach Program for Women internships from 2010 and on show that there are many qualified women candidates out there, but that the program needs to be targeted directly at them to make them realize that they are welcome in the Free Software community and to let them know they can make a difference.

The Free Software community has several ongoing projects aiming to increase women participation, such as the recommendations made by the FSF women’s caucus, the ROSE blog interviews with women in Free Software, and the Ada Initiative. The GNOME community's contribution to this effort is the Outreach Program for Women that encourages women participation throughout the year and creates internship opportunities in GNOME and other Free Software organizations.

Our goals are to: Here is how you can get involved:
We need your help raising money for the stipends for the interns to make this part of the program possible. Please consider making a donation towards the Outreach Program for Women. Please let us know if your company would like to provide the sponsorship for the program.