Forge

Impact Program

Join Impact to gain experience in your field by working on short, meaningful projects for organizations that need your skills the most. These three-week, paid projects start all throughout the semester, so you're only committed when you have the time.
Sign up to access projects
Why join Impact?
1
Low commitment
Projects are short, and you are only committed if you sign on to be. Feel free to take breaks!
2
Gain experience
In just a few weeks, get great stories to tell in interviews and a great resume addition. With no barrier to entry.
3
Help those in need
Non-profits and other impact-drive organizations need you. Put your skills to use and make a big difference for our partners.
Our Mission
We strongly believe that what we teach and learn at Forge can and must be used as a force for good. Wherever possible, we prioritize work that makes a positive impact on our community.

In our Impact program, our students put their skills to work in fast-paced short projects and initiatives. (Impact is a common next step for students who complete Launch or our skills courses.) Sometimes these projects benefit community nonprofits, sometimes they help our a student organization, and sometimes they're initiatives of our own. Many of our projects are completed pro-bono.

Impact projects include data analysis and visualization, UX research and recommendations, new marketing campaigns, custom software solutions, and more. Many of our projects are cross-disciplinary.

If you have an idea for an Impact project or your organization would like support, let us know at hello@joinforge.co.
Past Impact Projects
Get a sense of what our students work on in Impact.
(Some examples are not posted here due to confidentiality agreements with nonprofits working with sensitive data.)
Save the Corner
We launched a fundraising initiative and marketing campaign in summer 2020 to get support for our Corner restaurant neighbors suffering from the economic impacts of COVID-19. We fundraised over $6,000 in two months to buy Corner meals for local residents in need, fundraised money for laid off Corner restaurant workers, and sold gift cards to the restaurants.
Visit savethecorner.com
HoosVoting.org
With the challenges of COVID-19 and the limited public transportation options in Charlottesville, voting can be difficult and confusing for many students. We worked with Student Council, University Democrats, and College Republicans to build a nonpartisan resource to get out the vote in the UVA community. Hundreds have already used the site to make a plan to register and vote.
Visit hoosvoting.org
Computers4Kids
Computers4Kids (C4K) is a beloved local Charlottesville nonprofit that provides equipment and STEM mentoring to local youth. Our data science students worked with their team to better understand how their student demographics and usage of their programs have changed over time. "Forge's students were tremendously helpful to us," shared Blair McAvoy, then-Clubhouse Coordinator for C4K. "Their data analysis really helped us understand where we needed to focus our efforts next."
Visit Computers4Kids
More past Impact projects