Hello from LALA!
Four months of 2023 have gone by, and we hope you were able to make the best out of them. Here in LALA, the beginning of this year has been very eventful and full of work!
2022 was a year of laying the foundations to really turn LALA into a rocketship for impact in Latin America. Wih your help, we are making it happen. Let´s take a look at some of the results we are most proud of, in different critical areas of our model.
"No stone unturned; no gem unfound": our Outreach efforts
This past year, our Bootamps scaled 50%, from 460 to 692 students. Over the last 12 months, our community of Lalíderes grew from 1278 to 1970 young leaders from 18 countries. Excitingly, we are finding hidden gems that the traditional system is missing.
In Brazil, for example, Black student representation grew from 28% to 46% in just one year. Continetally, low income admits grew from 33% to 67% and female admits climbed from an already high 70% to an astounding 75%. Altogether, 70% of LALíderes to date come from underrepresented backgrounds and our efforts to DEVELOP and CONNECT them are also working, and scaling. On the Camps side, even as we’ve grown, we’ve maintained LALA’s exceptionally high quality, with an average NPS of +95 in 2022.
A thriving Ecosystem: a lifelong fellowship of leadership opportunities
The last day of camp our students become “Lalíderes” and enter a lifelong fellowship and network, where they get access to a range of opportunities, both in-house and from partner organizations. Lalíderes often describe this as a “Disneyland of opportunities”. The main clusters of interventions include: Mentorship, University Access, Internships & Careers and Applied leadership opportunities at LALA.
Let´s take a look at the ley figures in each of those signature programmes.
Our Mentorship Program continues to grow. Our database now includes 500+ mentors, and we’ve made more than 300 tailored, hand-made mentorship matches. If you have not done so, I’d love you to consider Mentoring a Lalíder. The time commitment is very light, mentees describe it as life-changing, and mentors describe it as profoundly inspirational and a great way to develop their own skills and give back to the world. Take a deeper look at how the program works, here.
In terms of the University Placement Program, we continue to place LALíderes in the best universities in Latin America and the world, and collectively they’re receiving millions of dollars in need-based financial aid. Last year, Lalíderes won US$13M in college scholarships. The return on investment is hugeand here’s the quick math: each new LALíder costs us, all in, under US$2,000. Each time one of them gets a full ride scholarship in the US, that’s around US$300,000, when you add all four years. That’s a 150x return. You’d expect this to be a rare event, but this is happening for dozens and dozens of Lalíderes.
One of the LALideres that were part of the 2022/2023 cohort, explains the structure of the program and its importance to his journey “My University Placement mentor helped me a lot with weekly calls to follow the application process, support with essays, creating a very strong community of people who are applying, having this community for me was one of the most important parts.”
When it comes to the Intership Program, this past season alone, we trained 100 Lalíderes, and placed 30 of them at 10 partner organizations. Over the last 2 years, this program has put US$85K in the pockets of our Lalíderes. You have no idea how impactful these stipends have been for many of them, especially as the Pandemic and the recession have hurt many of their families’ finances.
If you run a business or social enterprise, this is another program I’d love you to consider, as it can be a triple win: You get access to highly-selected talent, they get training, networks and stipends, and—together—we make an investment in those who may become the job creators of the future. Find more information here.
Now let´s take a look at the Applied leadership opportunities at LALA. This past year hundreds of Lalíderes returned to build LALA with us through both paid professional and unpaid leadership positions. 20 Lalíderes were part of our core team, and 244 participated in 5 paid and 17 volunteer leadership roles. Collectively, these traineeship opportunities added up to 23,000 hours of applied learning for these Lalíderes… and are a big reason why our impact has far exceeded our budget!
Welcome to the LALA House, in Medellín!
In order to prepare LALA for a post-Pandemic world, thanks to the generous support of the Efrusy Family Foundation this past year we purchased our first building! The so called LALA House, is the first piece of what will become an urban campus to create rich, immersive residential programs in the city of Medellin. If you’re ever traveling by Medellin, hit us up! We’d love to show you around.
This is particularly great news as our IN-PERSON CAMPS will be having a comeback in the next season - one in English in June and one in Spanish in July, both in the LALA House.
Team
We welcomed many new members to our team that will help us in the mission of finding, developing, and connecting young leaders from around Latin America - including a Chief Operating Officer, Alia Whitney-Johnson, and a Director of Development & Strategic Partnerships, Oriana Torres. To learn more about them and all the other incredible professionals joining our efforts - check our website.
Looking ahead: 2023 priorities
2023 will be an exciting but tricky year for LALA. After 5 years of consistently delivering within budget, this is our first time navigating a recession, and we don’t yet know how it will affect philanthropic giving in the region.
In response to this climate, our three overarching priorities this year are:
Our 3 invitations to keep transforming the leadership landscape of Latin America!
Firstly, we invite you to connect with us. Do you want to understand our programs better? Do you want to get to know one of our Lalíderes? Do you want to nominate a Lalíder? Do you want to provide feedback? Let us know, we are just an email away!
Second, we invite you to Grow the Movement. Now that we've gone through this update, if you can think of people who would resonate with our mission, please let us know. We’d love to meet them.
And finally, I invite you to keep investing in our Mission. Most donors don’t give in the first half of the year, and many will likely give less because of the recession. Help us beat this cycle. Oriana, our new Director of Development and Strategic Partnerships is eager to hear from you and discuss how LALA packs more punch per dollar than other education, youth & leadership development models! She can be reached at oriana.torres@somoslala.org.
As we grow and scale our work - we can´t thank you enough for all your help.
Thank you for walking with us. Your support is amplifying our impact across Latin America.
Gratefully, LALA.
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Hello from LALA!
We hope that 2022 is treating you well and allowing you to reconnect physically with more of your loved ones and hobbies.
Thanks to you and other close friends, LALA has had an exciting year as we celebrated our 5th anniversary in July. This year also marked the beginning of our three-year plan to triple our annual student intake from 500 to 1,500 by 2025. We are excited to deepen the impact of our programs so that our graduates are equipped to create lasting change in their communities.
Thank you for your continued trust and support. We hope you will continue to walk with us and with our young leaders!
Interested in becoming part of the journey of the next 1,500 young leaders? Consider contributing to our scholarship fund!
Developing young leaders through the LALA Internship Program
In Latin America and the Caribbean, the average unemployment rate for 15- to 24-year-olds reached 23.8% in the first quarter of 2021, the highest level recorded since this index began to be compiled in 2006 by the International Labor Organization. Besides not having access to opportunities, many young people do not feel they have the skills required by available positions.
With 64% of LALA students coming from underprivileged backgrounds, it became imperative to start exploring how to boost their careers. And indeed, with many of our students aspiring not just to great careers for themselves, but to be the job creators of the future, we realized they had to start learning from the best now.
This is why last year we launched LALA’s Internship Program. This initiative connects LALA youth with paid work opportunities at exciting companies and non-profit organizations in Latin America and globally. The program offers a six-week training to develop skills and prepare them for the beginning of their professional journeys. Since its implementation in early 2021, the program has delivered 52 paid internships in 28 partner organizations and 6 countries (Australia, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, and the United States).
“It truly made me grow professionally and academically in a safe, nurturing environment. It was essential to my development and entry into the market,” Bianca from Brazil.
“It helped me connect with a person who is a role model for me and get important experience that will sure help me with my current and future projects,” Aline from Brazil.
As LALA scales and as a growing number of LALumni approach key transition points in their early & mid-twenties, we need a growing number of partner organizations that are excited to access our talent and help us crack several questions as we continue to search for a product-market fit.
Do you work with a company that would like to partner with us and sponsor LALAinterns? If yes, please email hic-team@somoslala.org to learn how we could work together!
LALA and VélezReyes+ join forces to transform Latin America
We are honored to be among VélezReyes+’s first partner organizations. United by a shared vision to transform Latin America through the development of a new kind of leader—more diverse, innovative, and committed to service and impact—both organizations will collaborate to enable LALA to scale and deepen its impact in the region.
VélezReyes+, founded by Mariel Reyes and David Vélez, focuses on addressing the significant inequality of opportunities that people face in Latin America. Through this new effort, VélezReyes+ seeks to accelerate the region’s social transformation and unlock opportunities for the most vulnerable and disadvantaged Latin Americans with a focus on children and youth, supporting them to build their futures.
The birth of VelezReyes+ is not just great for LALA. It is an indication of better philanthropic practice in Latin America. They deeply understand that allocating resources to regional problems, with the central view of helping others, can improve our world considerably.
VélezReyes+ is bringing a different way of working with social enterprises. In empowering other organizations through their philanthropic and non-financial support and resources while believing in the work already developed by them, VélezReyes+ is at the forefront of an even bigger movement: a new way of approaching strategic philanthropy in Latin America.
With the strategic, financial, and technical support of VélezReyes+, LALA is embarking on an ambitious journey to grow its reach to find 1500 new young leaders each year. Therefore, by 2030, LALA’s network will have surpassed 13,000 leaders across Latin America. These leaders will come from every country and every background and work across the private, public, and social sectors to solve the region’s most pressing problems.
"Obrigracias" from the entire LALA community, your support is making an impact across Latin America.
Gratefully,
Diego Ontaneda, Co-Founder & CEO
Hello from LALA!
We hope you and your loved ones are well and keeping safe.
It is an exciting time at LALA! As we navigate 2022 and its mix of opportunities and challenges as the world recovers from the Pandemic, it gives us joy that with our donors, partners, staff, volunteers, students, and alumni, we are helping transform the leadership landscape of Latin America.
Over five years since our inception, this year marked the beginning of an exciting growth phase where we seek to triple our annual student intake by 2025.
Please find more information below on some key accomplishments that your support made possible for LALA, and learn about our upcoming plans!
Launch of our new brand during LALA’s fifth birthday celebration
On 10th July, our community celebrated LALA’s 5th birthday with alumni, parents, staff, and donors coming together to showcase their gratitude and sense of belonging with emotional testimonials that reminded us of the importance of our community.
On top of the memorable encounter, we also launched our new brand and visual identity, which better represents our mission, goals, identity, and growth in Latin America - as well as makes us more recognizable in the process.
With this new look, we hope to showcase who we are as an organization and community. We are, indeed, the same LALA, just more conspicuous and consistent. To read more about the decision-making process behind our rebranding, as well as discover other details such as our new typefaces, iconography, and colors, we invite you to check out our revamped website.
Building the paths for the young leaders of the future
In Latin America and the Caribbean, the average unemployment rate for 15 to 24-year-olds reached 23.8% in the first quarter of 2021, the highest level recorded since this index began to be compiled in 2006 by the International Labor Organization. Besides not having access to opportunities, most young people do not feel prepared with the skills required in the positions available due to poor access to high-quality internet connectivity and education for skills and new technologies in the labor market.
Our mission is to systematically help young people develop high-impact careers that give them purpose, maximize their learning, and promote social mobility. We do this by removing financial, cultural, and access barriers to development opportunities and building a holistic ecosystem that creates space and access to high-impact careers.
And to contribute to this mission, early this year, we started LALA’s High Impact Careers department, whose strategy focuses on removing barriers and broadening access to opportunities from a holistic perspective on the journey of our young leaders. We believe that offering relevant work opportunities to our students early in their careers can be a turning point towards personal and professional development and financial freedom. This is why we have developed our Internship Program.
The Internship Program is an initiative that connects LALA youth with paid work opportunities at the world’s top companies and non-profit organizations. The program offers a 6-week training to develop skills and prepare them for their initial professional journeys. Since its implementation in early 2021, the program has delivered 52 paid internships in 28 partner organizations and 6 countries (Australia, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, and the United States).
Relying on multi-sector partners to leverage the largest number of opportunities is a key element of this initiative.
Do you work with a company that would like to sponsor an intern? Kindly email felipe.amaral@somoslala.org today!
We are excited to welcome industry titans to the Board of Directors
As we enter an ambitious scaling phase to amplify our systemic impact in Latin America - LALA is thrilled to announce two new additions to our Board of Directors!
We welcome Zé Dias, Partner and Managing Director of Remessa Online and C-level executive at EBANX, and Paulo Passoni, a renowned Latin American entrepreneur and investor.
Zé is an executive with over 20 years of experience developing winning cultures and teams, long and short-term plans, and improving P&L performance in several industries. He is currently acting as partner and Managing Director for Remessa Online and is overseeing its integration with EBANX. As a leader, Zé has longstanding experience in developing enterprises and is an ardent supporter of non-profit initiatives.
Paulo created and led SoftBank’s truly independent Latin America $5bn fund alongside Marcelo Claure and Shu Nyatta. The fund invested in almost 80 growth equity companies from 2019 to 2022 and catalyzed a new wave of investments by local and global firms within the LatAm region. He left SoftBank in April 2022 and intends on joining Shu in creating a new independent firm focused on growth equity in Latin America in April 2023. He is an investment guru with vast experience in Latin America and globally. He is a big believer in Latin America’s potential to produce innovation and is deeply involved in social causes via Fundação Estudar, Renova Brasil, and LALA
As LALA scales and our operations become more complex and international, it gives us great confidence to count on their guidance and oversight as Board members.
We thank you once again for all your support as LALA marks five years of impact - Thank you for supporting our scholarship fund!
"Obrigracias," from the entire LALA community, your support is making an impact across Latin America.
Gratefully,
Diego Ontaneda, Co-founder & CEO
Links:
Hello from LALA!
We hope that 2022 is treating you well, and allowing you to reconnect in-person with more of your loved ones and hobbies.
Thanks to supporters like you, LALA has had a strong and exciting start to the year, as 2022 marked the beginning of our three year plan to triple our annual student intake from 500 to 1,500, with a goal of bringing 500 young leaders into LALA in Spanish, Portuguese, and English programs each year by 2025. Thank you for your commitment to sustainable development in Latin America and for believing in the potential of the next generation to transform their communities!
Please find more information below on some key accomplishments that your support made possible for LALA, and learn about our upcoming plans!
Preparing for 3x growth:
In order to achieve our 3x student intake goals, LALA must (i) scale our outreach capacity to find more high quality and high potential applicants while maintaining our focus on Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Access (DEIA), (ii) scale our operational capacity to sustain 3x growth, and (iii) scale our ecosystem’s capacity to enrich the LALA leadership journeys of our students after their initial leadership bootcamp.
In our last report, we shared more detail about our plans and advancements for DEIA-focused outreach across the region. We are applying our DEIA experience in Brazil to guide our growth across Hispanic Latin America. In Brazil, we redesigned our recruitment machine by focusing our efforts to find BIPOC students through local partners, ensuring our diversity reflects the reality of the region, and empowering BIPOC alums to self-organize & co-lead the change with us.
The early results from LALA Brazil are encouraging: 60% of participants at our next Bootcamp in Portuguese self-identify as BIPOC! 90% of students receive financial aid, and 70% come from underrepresented backgrounds.
While we continue to prioritize our DEIA recruitment, LALA has begun 2022 with a heavy focus on our operational and ecosystem capacity building. We are excited to share the progress with you!
Our team has been growing!:
LALA’s mission to change the lives of over 10,000 Latin American young leaders takes deep commitment, skill, alignment of purpose, and a dedicated team.
Our team has been growing along with LALA, and some of the recent members to join our team are: Ecosystem Junior Manager Maria Clara who manages the infrastructures that support alumni engagement & development; Bootcamp Operations Manager Carolina Santos who works on scaling LALA’s entrypoint programs across the Latin American region; and Senior Manager of High Impact Careers Patricia Santana who is focused on removing the barriers that prevent our students from accessing the best university and career opportunities to reach their greatest potential.
We are very excited to continue to build and grow in a way that elevates the impact that LALA is spearheading both in the short term and long term. Our dream is to transform our region and change the world together, and thus we will continue to invite talented and tenacious professionals to join the team.
Organizing our Ecosystem:
With the growth of our community to over 1200 alumni and 20 ecosystem programs, and our projected 3x short-term growth, LALA unified recruitment into a single Ecosystem Application to streamline participation for both volunteers and program owners.
In January, we gathered an Ecosystem Application Task Force of 7 people, composed of representatives for tech, promotion, DEIA and programs to design a smooth process. On February 12th, we launched the application and received a total of 245 candidates by March 6th. Our goal was to distribute opportunities more equitably and improve volunteer retention rates. It was a huge coordination effort, but we are happy to say that we reached 80% of our recruitment goal!
The verdict is still out on how the EcosApp will influence the volunteer experience for Wind & Fire Season programming (March to August). Our hope is that LALums were better able to schedule their engagement with LALA among other priorities with school, work and family. We plan to collect volunteer feedback at the end of the season and launch the 2nd edition of the EcosApp in August, looking ahead to the Earth & Water Seasons (August to February).
2020-2023 Campaign Goal:
We are excited to report that we are well on track for our 2020-2023 Campaign Goals! Of our US$4.5M fundraising target, we have already received US$1.85M and have another US$1.05M committed for 2022-23, totalling US$2.9M, or 64% of our Campaign target!!
Thanks to the generous support of The Efrusy Family Foundation, we have now purchased facilities in Medellin to house our Leadership Academy! With this small five-storey apartment building, we will begin to develop our modular urban campus concept. We will now begin to evaluate the neighboring houses in the area for attractive opportunities that we can use immediately for housing (student & faculty), office space, and for the optionality for future development. As we continue to look at expanding our footprint, please let us know if you’d be interested in partnering with us in this area!
We are honored to be among the first partners of the Plataforma Vélez Reyes (PVR), the philanthropic vehicle that David Vélez and Mariel Reyes have created to bring to life their inspirational public commitment to Latin American development. PVR has committed a US$50K lead grant and a 30% match on donations to LALA (with a US$200K cap!).
We are thrilled to have been selected to join Imaginable Futures’ portfolio. This is a huge testament to the incredible work our team has been doing, and we are optimistic for the possibilities that this partnership will unlock.
Accel Partners has made a generous pledge of US$150K/yr for the next three years! If you would like to explore how your company might partner with LALA too, we’d love to talk about it!
If you would like to learn more about how to get more involved with our Campaign, don’t hesitate to reach out to juntos@somoslala.org!
As we enter this new scaling phase and increase the depth of development offerings in LALA's Ecosystem, we need your partnership!
"Obrigracias" from the entire LALA community, your support is making an impact across Latin America.
Gratefully,
Diego Ontaneda, Co-Founder & CEO
Links:
Hello and happy new year from LALA,
One year has passed since you helped us become GlobalGiving partners by contributing to our mission and joining our movement! In that year, your support has enabled us to find, connect, and develop hundreds of young leaders across Latin America. Thank you for your commitment to sustainable development in Latin America and for believing in the potential of the next generation to transform their communities!
Please find more information below on some key accomplishments that your support made possible for LALA in 2021, and learn about some of our goals for 2022!
Thank you once more for your continued support, and happy new year.
Where We Are & Where We’re Going!
1. LALA is growing in Spanish, Portuguese, and English!
In 2021 we accomplished our commitment to offer LALA programming in English, Portuguese, and Spanish!
It was an exciting achievement for our community to offer multiple Virtual Leadership Bootcamps in Portuguese and Spanish this year, and we learned many important lessons along the way. We will use these learnings to guide our work into 2022 as we take aim at our next goal: Tripling our student intake from 500 to 1500 new young leaders per year.
In 2021, Peru led our number of Hispanic Latin American applicants, followed by Paraguay, and Colombia. In 2022 we aim to receive 800-1,000 applications from Hispanic Latin America, with a specific focus on Mexico, Peru and Colombia. Our goal is for 750 applications to come from those three countries, with 60% from Mexico and 40% from Peru and Colombia, while maintaining our commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion, and access (DEIA).
2. LALA is creating more self-directed learning opportunities
We made important improvements in our applicant outreach, and have learned that a broad based, holistic selection strategy with many potential entrances into LALA’s Ecosystem leads to a more dynamic LALA experience.
We have similarly moved away from a one size fits all leadership program, and are designing LALA to be even more modular, with opt-in freedom of choice for our students to pursue the growth that inspires them. Our goal is that students will be able to chart their own paths through the LALA Ecosystem’s offerings to gain up to 5,000 hours of extracurricular development, and help them achieve their leadership potential and aspirations.
We are determined to measure the results of these modules in order to map and understand how to best recreate and improve these learning pathways. We are excited to continue this important growth in 2022.
3. LALA’s progress on DEIA outreach is gaining momentum
In 2021 LALA’s Brazil hub led us in our commitment to DEIA and showed us that real diversity does not come from simply welcoming all applicants, but from proactively searching out and inviting applicants from all backgrounds. Thanks to the hard work of our Brazil Hub’s outreach team making in-person visits to marginalized communities and focusing their efforts and energy on strategic local feeder partners, they were able to double our afro-brazilian student representation from 25% to 50%, in line with Brazil’s demographics.
We will use these learnings and experiences to maintain and build upon this important outreach work across the region in 2022.
"Obrigracias", and happy new year from the entire LALA community!
Diego Ontaneda, Cofounder & CEO
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