Our Program

SamaUSA, a program operated under Samasource, helps low-income community college students earn income through online work so they can graduate and forge a pathway out of poverty. Our 10 week training:

• Prepares participants to market themselves on online marketplaces such as oDesk, Task Rabbit or Elance
• Teaches high-demand, market-aligned skills
• Provides soft skills and digital literacy training required to be successful and competitive in today’s job market

We use cutting-edge education technology, hands-on coaching, work-based learning and strong partnerships to ensure that our students are successful. Those students that successfully complete the program will be awarded netbooks to ensure they have the tools and access to thrive in the digital work marketplace.

Why online work? The online work sector grew to an estimated $1 billion in 2012 and currently provides hundreds of thousands of jobs. The number of online jobs has increased by up to 105% year over year, and these jobs pay an average of $20 per hour for workers in the United States, which is 275% more than the current federal minimum wage. Workers can begin a variety of projects with very basic technical skills, including projects such as transcription, data entry, and other administrative support functions.

History

Samasource, an award-winning nonprofit social enterprise, has four years of deep expertise giving dignified work to poor people via the Internet. Samasource has connected over 3,700 women and youth globally to over $3 million in living wages, thereby helping the world’s poor reach their full potential. Workers pull themselves out of poverty by completing small digital tasks for companies including LinkedIn and Google through a proprietary online platform, and with support from the Rockefeller and MasterCard Foundations.

Samasource has decided to leverage its anti-poverty expertise and technology to tackle under-resourced communities in the United States. In September 2011,  Samasource announced intentions to expand into the United States at the Clinton Global Initiative. In March 2012, the California Endowment provided Samasource with partial funding to pilot an ambitious digital training program in California: SamaUSA.

SamaUSA will target rural and urban areas with high poverty and unemployment during its pilot phase that will impact over a hundred students at a cost of approximately $3,000 per trainee, as much as $20,000 less expensive than other comparable job training programs. The following year it will reach over 1,500 students at a 25% lower cost than the previous year, and will continue to aggressively expand while driving down costs to make the program accessible to as many students as possible.

Partners and Supporters

Funding

• The California Endowment

Advisory

• Brock Grubb, Visiting Fellow, MDRC
• Gina Fromer, District Vice President, Bayview, Buchanan, and Mission YMCA
• Kim Drew, Director of Planning & Business Development, JVS
• Herbert Allen III, President, CEO & Managing Director at Allen & Company
• Debbie McCoy, Director, Emerging/Frontier Market Investment Initiatives, Stanford University
• Alison Pincus, Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer, One King’s Lane
• Glenda Humiston, California State Director at the U.S. Department of Agriculture

Partners

• Bayview Hunters Point YMCA
• TechSF
• Mid-Pacific Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) Center
• City College of San Francisco
• Bayview Magic
• Young Community Developers
• BAVC
• Gateway to College
• Task Rabbit
• WordPress