more 2.0, please

So I’ve been kind of lost for a while, but I have not forgotten about my dear lunchbox :) I know I have some pending topics to write about but I'll be honesy, maybe I’ll never do it… who knows. I wanted to write more about Banco del Libro’s Award, about volunteers and many other themes but I haven’t got to that moment where I sit in front of Panelita (my mac) and feel like writing about it.

Anyway, tonight I want to write about my passion: Social Media. This week I had two 1.0 encounters with the 2.0 world. On Wednesday (Social Media Day), Dom Sagolla (Twitter) and Dave Morin (Facebook) visited Venezuela and gave a confernce. Thanks to my cool job at the Venezuela sin Límites Foundation, I got to go and it was really awesome. I loved to listen to them talk about these tools, how they were created and simple case studies that made it easy to understand its reach.

 @dom and my not so esteemed whale

about what I do...

Finally I find time to write a new post! These past weeks have been very interesting and filled with great information and new people. I have a few pending topics to write about but to write them I first need to write this post about my workplace.

I work at the Venezuela sin Límites Foundation in Caracas. We are a Non-Profit Organization that connects those who want to help with those who know who to help and how to do it. We make possible the connection between NGOs and Foundations who need funds, volunteers, materials and knowledge, and the enterprises that can help and support them.

We do pretty cool things and I love that we’re always in the look for new technologies that will allow us to do our work more efficiently. For instance, our Social Maps. This is a great tool that will be constantly growing and widening its reach to make all these people committed with the social development of their countries visible for everyone in the whole world. The coolest thing is that we do all this and have FUN. We play charades, go to events and concerts and have super parties like this one yesterday:

cause marketing needs to lead to action

Last Friday I had a meeting about a project a friend is developing. He’s starting a Foundation and the best thing is the fact that neither him or his team members come from the non-profit sector. Instead, they’re from the marketing sector. Curious? It gets better: this foundation is not about a specific cause; it’s about all causes. I don’t want to give much detail because I think it will be best if you see it in a few months when it’s out there, but I can tell you this: it’s a great idea mixed with a great team; it can’t go wrong.

Anyway, from this meeting excellent ideas came up to continue innovating and improving the social development area. From this, I got the topic for this post: the lack of good marketing strategies in non-profits.

so I've decided to share my lunch box with you :)

I’m hoping to post here my opinion on different issues that catch my attention, and share them with people who are interested in these topics thus creating a space for the exchange of points of views and thoughts.

To start, I’ll share the comment I posted on Paul Klein’s “What’s your CSR moment of the week?” I wrote about Banco del Libro and I started out with a little bit of backgroung info:

Banco del Libro (Bank of Books in English) is a non-profit organization here in Venezuela that is dedicated to promoting the importance of reading among children as a mechanism to impact positively in the social development of our country. Personally, I find this to be my favorite cause and my favorite non-profit organization. I used to work there and it was one of the best experiences of my life.