London Tech Firm Northern Commerce Gives $150K To Support Black Youth

Northern Commerce, a web development and digital marketing firm that was founded in 2015 and has about 190 staff, is giving $150,000 to the Lead to Change Foundation, a Toronto-based agency that supports black youth in arts and culture.

The money is a one-year commitment and will be used to offer youth workshops in garment and print design, podcasts and broadcasting, photography and video, and audio recording and engineering.

Northern staff will also work with youth in developing digital marketing skills. The firm has presented Lead to Change with an initial donation of $40,000 for the workshops that will begin in April and an additional $110,000 will flow later this year, he added.

Northern officials were motivated after reviewing national industry data that showed only three percent of the tech workforce across Canada identified as Black while 70 percent identified as white, said Samantha Courneya, senior director of people and culture at Northern.