University of Notre Dame Development Advisory Team

Latin American Leadership Academy Presentation

Content Appendix

Olivia Colón, Meghan Conroy, Anne McHugh

1 December 2018
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How might we build a sustainable network that facilitates engagement among the Latin
American Leadership Academy alumni and fosters continued leadership development and
collaboration amongst their peers?

Background Research
African Leadership Academy:
African Leadership Academy (ALA) is an organization that inspired the creation of the
Latin American Leadership Academy through its decade of success and unprecedented
educational endeavors throughout Africa. There are a few important lessons that LALA could
take from the ways in which they have created both an efficient business model as well as a
successful system of career and alumni networking. An influential component of ALA is its
Center for Entreupreneurial Leadership. The CLE created and tested a framework that would
teach the students of ALA leadership and entrepreneurial skills in the most effective way
possible. This framework is known as BUILD, standing for Believe, Understand, Invent, Listen
and Deliver. This method inspires the future leaders of ALA to think of innovate solutions to
local and worldly problems by believing in the change they are capable of creating, having an in
depth understanding of the community or communities they wish to serve, inventing varied and
creative possible solutions, listening to feedback to improve their innovations, and delivering
impactful results. This framework has led to a concrete skill set that students have used to create
opportunities for themselves and to help ALA facilitate connections alongside them. ALA does a
great job of educating their students and setting them up with skills for success, connecting them
to opportunities, and then providing an extensive backbone of support through their alumni
network that can help further the initial success of their students. Time operates in a circular
manner at ALA. Effort and skills are fed in to the student population, only for opportunity and
networking to be produced in due time. If LALA can find a way to adapt this circular system of
training, connection, and support for its students, as their organization develops they will be able
to achieve a mutually beneficial alumni network.

Ashoka
Ashoka is an organization whose mission is to create a network of social changemakers
and support the work being done by these leaders. One part of this organization that is
particularly relevant to LALA is their #LeadYoung campaign. This is a storytelling campaign
that showcases young leaders who are making a difference in their community and around the
world. The purpose of this campaign is to inspire other young leaders and show to the world that
change is possible from anywhere and any one. This can be translated to LALA by showcasing
he work their alumni are doing. This would be a “where are they now” blog. LALA could go one
step further and allow other alumni access to their contact information. With this information
other alumni could seek advice, show their support, or share information. Another important
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insight from this campaign is the easy to remember and easy to reuse title #LeadYoung. LALA
could create a relevant hashtag that can be easily identifiable and repeated to better market their
blog.

Family Independence Initiative

Family Independence Initiative (FII) is an organization with the overarching goal of
directly connecting low-income families so that they themselves can work together to overcome
poverty. FII was founded in 2001 by Lim Miller in Oakland, California. In the past 17 years, the
organization has been established in seven more cities and enrolled more than 3,000 families. FII
strives to build structured networks of low-income families across the country to facilitate
exchanges of ideas and social capital. Their objectives challenge some of the fundamental beliefs
about poverty, especially those that insinuate poor families cannot improve their circumstances
without outside involvement. FII does not have the goal of implementing changes as an
organization, but instead of creating a network structure for families that will elicit changes from
people on an individual and collective level.
FII has a theory of change that is based on the idea of positive deviance. Positive
deviance is based on the idea that despite facing many of the same resource deficits and
challenges, some community members exhibit exceptional behaviors that allow them to find
better solutions. FII believes that identifying these positive deviants and placing them in a
network of people will incite change. The organization theorizes that this “social signaling”
mechanism is the greatest driver of change because it creates awareness, inspiration, and a form
of jealousy that can actually act positively to improve behaviors. Although it may take longer for
an organic diffusion of positive ideas, FII believes that poverty will be best overcome when
people help themselves and others in their same situation. In practice, five to seven families who
live in the same city apply collectively to FII. Once they are determined by the organization to be
a good fit, the group makes a two-year commitment to FII and each other to ensure sufficient
time for growth. FII facilitates monthly meetings so group members have a physical space to
share stories, challenges, and advice with a community of understanding individuals. The
organization works to establish the networks so that families can then help each other attain
upward mobility.
In order to understand the impact of their theory of change in a broader context, FII
created a social networking tool called UpTogether with the goal of growing the network of
families beyond their physical location. The technology serves four main goals: to connect
families to one another, to share success stories, to track spending and social capital exchanges,
and to access resources offered by FII. The platform allows for members to share their
challenges and solutions with people who face the same issues. It provides a space for these
“positive deviants” to be seen by poor families hundreds of miles away. FII also uses
UpTogether to highlight members as an “expert” on a certain topic or issue so that other people
can easily find inspiration and original solutions. UpTogether also functions to track family
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income, savings, education, social capital exchanges, and health. Not only does this allow
families to track their own success, but it provides FII with valuable data that can help inform
their interventions and fundraising. FII also has an “UpTogether fund” that it gives to family
members in the form of scholarships, matched savings, loans, and awards. Families can utilize
this fund if they have used and promise to continue using UpTogether to track their progress.
According to creator Lim Miller, the FII approach, “creates a structure for families that
encourages a sense of control, desire for self-determination, and mutual support that have
characterized the collective rise out of poverty for countless communities in American history.”

Survey of LALA Alumni

In order to come up with informed action steps to develop strong networks, we conducted a
survey of LALA bootcamp alumni using a google form. We sent the survey to 63 people and
received 17 responses. This is a response rate of 27%. The results are included at the end of the
appendix and the raw data will be provided as well.

Action Steps
1. Online- LALinked and Social Media
First, we think that LALA could develop a networking platform (LaLinked) to create a
space for alumni to connect and network with one another. Because the alumni are young
people who use technology as an integral part of their everyday life already, we believe
that developing an platform would best serve the needs of both LALA and their students.
Also, it would have the capability to connect students across cities and countries. We
recommend that LaLinked have the following features:
- LAdvertise yourself
- This feature would allow alumni to create a profile and fill out information
about themselves. Their profile could be visible to all other boot camp
participants. We believe that increasing the visibility of the alumni and
their actions in their community is a key part of inciting a meaningful
network. Students could look to this feature to find alumni with similar
interests and experiences. Allowing alumni to see what their peers are
doing would be helpful from both a networking perspective and for
inspiring new ideas within the network.
- Activities
- The activities section of the platform will be a collaborative place where
members of the LALA community can interact in a fun, creative way no
matter where they are. It will consist of four tentative features that of
course have the potential to evolve over time based on the expressed
interests of the students. The current features include: Give me some
#LAdvice, which will be a safe space with the potential to become a
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message board or advice column where the LALA community can come
together in support of each other. Game time is all about giving the LALA
alum a chance to connect together in an engaging, fun, carefree way. As
the platform progresses, a survey can be conducted to determine which
games the students would like to play. Let’s trade ideas will be a place
where students can get creative, barter ideas, and collaborate with their
peers to connect each other to new projects or potential opportunities. And
lastly, the inspiration corner will be a place where spontaneous where
inspirational quotes, moving photos, or anything else that comes to mind
can be shared and enjoyed amongst the entire community.
- Featured LALum
- LALA already has the infrastructure in place for this showcasing aspect of
their platform with their “Latest” section of their website. This is a space
where they share stories of what their alumni is doing along with
recruiting, and other news. We would encourage more stories of alumni
showcasing their achievements and what they are currently working on
posted at regular intervals. This can be compared to Ashoka’s
#LeadYoung campaign. This is a space that they solely dedicate to posting
inspirational stories of young leaders in their network. This is used to
inspire other young people and to show through a series of actions change
can be made. LALA can benefit from adopting this type of model by
having a more focused channel to showcase their alumni.
- Resources
- LALA can use this part of their platform to inform their alumni of
opportunities and other important information. It would serve a very
practical role by posting about scholarships, internships, jobs, etc. Also,
LALA staff members and alumni could write short articles about current
events, tips for finding academic and employment opportunities, and news
about workshops or networking opportunities. LALA should use this
feature to keep their alumni informed and help them develop
professionally.
- Social Media
- LALA can improve their marketability through increased social media
presence and branding. Through the surveys it was found that LALA
alumni most frequently use WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook in their
everyday lives. We recommend LALA use these platforms to allow ease
of transition from using it for social purposes, to using it for LALA
specific reasons. Regular updates and posting are recommended to keep
the users interested in interacting with the platform. This should be done
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with consistent language that identifies with LALA. This can be done
using hashtags and regular segments. We have found the alumni to
strongly identify LALA and are proud of their involvement with the
organization. We have provided sample hashtags and segments that
incorporate “LALA” in the name such as #LALinked, LActivities,
#LAdvice, LAdvertise yourself, etc. This is to create a stronger identity
with LALA that can be very visible and replicable.
- Tracking
- Similar to the FII model, LALA could also implement a tracking aspect to
their online platform. Encouraging alumni to self-report in areas like
academic achievement, leadership positions, volunteering hours, spending
habits, and exchange of social capital would lead to an awareness of where
alumni are thriving and in what areas they are lacking. If LALA
emphasized the importance of tracking these aspects during the bootcamp
and incentivized them properly, they could find themselves with a
database of valuable information. Tracking the success of their alumni
could allow them to see what works and what doesn’t in their
implementation of network structures.
2. ​Voice-to-Voice
Second, we think that phone calls can be used to encourage a meaningful alumni network
and complement an online platform.
- Regular conference calls were something that were frequently requested by the
alumni. Being able to have a conversation voice-to-voice allows for more organic
connections that could be made that an online connection does not provide. The
time frame of these conference calls could be determined by how often it is felt
that it is needed. This is an opportunity for alumni to share information, give and
receive advice, and to network further. The alumni could organize these calls
themselves and determine the agenda through an organized body. These calls
would be facilitated by the end user and so they would include the most beneficial
content for themselves. These calls could also be a resource for LALA. They have
the opportunity to gather information from their alumni on a regular basis. They
can also use it to delegate some work. If they have some small project they can
prompt the alumni to work together to complete the work.

3. ​Face-to-Face
Lastly, we have determined that face-to-face interactions and reunions is extremely useful
in building networks. From the survey results and a revealing conversation we had with
an African Leadership Academy staff member, we determined that alumni are more
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likely to keep in contact with one another when they know there is a face-to-face meeting
set for a future time.
- Alumni Board
- We recommend organizing an alumni board to help build these
networking platforms and to continue the upkeep. It was understood
through the responses to the surveys that LALA’s alumni are a great
resource to the organization. They are very enthusiastic about their
involvement in LALA and appear very willing to volunteer their time and
resources to continue helping it grow. These alumni can apply to be a part
of this board and would understand the responsibilities and expectations of
their involvement on the board. They could help with the regular posting
on the social media and the gathering of stories they could post. They
could help organize the conference calls and the reunions for the alumni.
For the conference calls they could set the times, agendas, and follow-up
with any matters discussed during these calls. For the reunions they would
help plan and organize these events. Depending on how many members
are on the board, it could be split into subcommittees with more specific
tasks. This would put the end users directly in charge of the networking.
This would ensure they get the most out of the resources LALA has to
offer.

Survey Results
What drew you to participate in a LALA bootcamp?
1. I always had the wish of helping in my community growth and it motivated me, since
early, to be part of social and volunteering projects mostly with the educational field. For
a long time, however, I acted without a direction that could show me how more impactful
I could be. Therefore, I was looking for programs and initiatives that allowed me to
improve my social entrepreneurship, design thinking and self-knowledge skills and that
put me in contact with other experienced leaders who I could form strong networks with.
LALA showed me all these things and I thought: “this is the opportunity I was waiting
for.”
2. My desire to learn more about leadership and sustainable methods for social impact.
3. Being able to connect with other Latin leaders to gain a global perspective and also to
develop myself as a good leader
4. My desire of being useful for my community and the Latin America somehow
5. The willingness to be around amazing people who are trying to change their communities
somewhat. Besides that, I believe that one of the main reasons that I had to apply for
LALA was the skills that I would have the opportunity to learn: Design Thinking,
empathy, teamwork, and probably much more. But to be honest, the main thing was the
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fact that I would be surrounded by other amazing people - that's what really drew me to
participate in the first boot camp organized by LALA.
6. Connect with peers that were impacting their communities with projects and learn not
only with them but also with our mentors at the camp
7. Being able to meet like-minded individuals from all over Latin America.
8. To improve my leadership
9. The opportunity to connect with like-minded young people from Latin America.
10. The amazing opportunity to build a wide and diverse network, open my mind to new
ideas and concepts I would not have realized on my daily routine as well as learn from
experts how to be a better leader and help my community in a more efficient way.
11. Curiosity
12. Engaging in an inspiring environment and learning new things.
13. My passion for social change and my desire of having an experience that would be so
impactful that I would never be the same person after it.
14. I decided to take part in a LALA bootcamp for many reasons. I was curious to see what
the camp was about and wanted to learn new things. I was really drawn into taking part
when I realized how rich the camp could be for personal growth and academically.
15. I was a scholar at Prep estudar fora, and heard about the program through fundação
estudar
16. Even though this might seem a little bit arrogant, the fact that the organizers were from
Stanford University made me a little bit extra motivated. Also, the purpose of uniting 24
brilliant Brazilian minds in a 1-week bootcamp brought me the will of, in a certain way,
proving myself that I had the potential to be selected as one among that unique group of
people. And last, but way far from least, the learning potential of that experience was off
the roof, drawing me to pursue that opportunity with full dedication.
17. I wanted to participate in a LALA bootcamp mainly to meet the amazing participants and
connect with them, also learn some skills that would help me in a lot of activities I do, as
Design Thinking.

What impact did the LALA bootcamp have on you?

1. by the contact I had with other Brazilian and worldwide leaders, the protagonist and
teamwork activities, self-knowledge and mindfulness sections, group discussions, design
thinking moments and, mainly, the social entrepreneurship lectures and practices I not
only became a better kind of leader, but a better kind of human being. Participating in
BLB helped me to expand my horizons, be more confident about myself and definitely
installed a big sense of hope on me.
2. Being a part of BLB first edition made me aware of all the potential I have to be the
leader of the changes I want to see in the world. It allowed me to connect with
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like-minded peers and have a sense of belonging for the first time in my life. I can easily
say that it was the biggest life-changing week I've ever had.
3. LALA bootcamp impacted in many aspects of my life like my academic future prospects
and also more internally. For instance, it helped to find a meaningful purpose to my
career orientation and also it transformed the concept of leadership I had.
4. The impact of showing me that I have the power of positive change and it will only work
if I take care of myself fist
5. I made friends for life there. For example, there I met Pedro Del Monaco, and nowadays
Pedro and I are very good friends. We just had the opportunity to meet again in a
conference for Brazilian Students in the United States and it was something perfect. We
had a great conversation and talked about the good time that we had at BLB 2017. After
LALA I also became someone who believed more in myself, I realized that I have a lot of
potential to do anything I want. I am able to create stuff, and I also realized that creativity
is not something that we are born with; we can learn to be creative, and LALA showed
me that. LALA also made me hopeful for a better Brazil in the future. Knowing that there
are other amazing young people out there creating projects to improve their communities
is just inspiring.
6. Learned several business techniques that I applied to my own projects, created a network
with social entrepreneurs and students, developed my self-awareness and discovered my
purpose
7. It changed me completely, I’m a new person now.
8. Know myself, discover that my reason has to be truly and what must motivate me to lead
change
9. I met very special people and learned how to better deal with challenges of various
natures.
10. LALA changed my way of looking at life, at people around me and what really needs to
be done to change the reality of Latin America. It also gave me hope to believe in myself
and many wonderful friends who inspire me every day.
11. It gave me a new life perspective
12. After LALA, I felt more confident in pursuing my goals and also felt that I had more
tools to do it than before the bootcamp
13. After the camp I can totally say I am more empowered than ever. Something that I was
not expecting, once I thought I would only learn about social entrepreneurship and how
to build and hold a social project.
14. It helped me grow as person and broaden my perspectives. I also learned a lot about
social entrepreneurship
15. Gratitude, being grateful is challenging yet so much needed.
16. I believe that, besides, obviously, having the opportunity to meet and to be inspired by
such amazing and like-minded peers, the biggest impact LALA had on me was the
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insights it brought me and the knowledges and contents it enlightened me, especially
during the moment we had with Marc, where he helped me to comprehend the rope of
time and universe theory with the term: to live expanding life.
17. BLB opened my mind for so many different opportunities and behaviors I could have.
For example, learning storytelling and applying to external events helped me a lot to
share my ideas. Also, simple things that I learned in LALA as "using headspace to
meditate" helped me so much in my personal life and demeanor. Although, LALA
impacted me the most in the connections I made during the bootcamps I participated.
Lucas Scherpel, for example, is a great friend and works with me today on my movement
Construindo o Futuro. With LALA, it was the first time I could keep in touch with people
from a camp that I participated.

How many people that you met in LALA are you still in contact with?

Average= 8.76 People

Are these connections mostly…

Qualitative responses given (counted under “Other”):

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- Personal and Academic.

What platforms do you use to stay in contact with these people?

What platforms do you use in your everyday life?

On a scale of 1-10, how effective is LALA at facilitating meaningful, long-term connections?

Average= 7.94

Do you have any ideas to help LALA improve in this area?

1. We could make some periodic group calls with the LALA alumni in order to follow up
their leadership actions and see how we can help them to improve. It is also a good idea
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to create and feed a YouTube channel with "LALA EXPERIENCES" and videos to show
people, by a more effective way, what LALA is about.
2. I think that we can have a platform that connects all students from different bootcamps.
Plus, I think that we could develop some "after program" online experience for
participants (i.e.: monthly content regarding social innovation and entrepreneurship or
webinars/skype meetings to talk about our own projects and means to develop them. I
would love to contribute to this project since I was lucky enough to have attended all the
bootcamps by LALA and met all participants.
3. Even though technology makes possible to be still in contact, there is nothing like face to
face communication, so to keep all connections strong LALA should organize a gathering
event between with all their members so we get the opportunity to meet all the other
incredible leaders that make part of this community
4. Maybe monthly online meetings with the BLBiers.
5. Yes. I think that LALA could organize meetings every two or three months after the
bootcamp where members of a specific edition would talk about their experiences and
share how their lives are right now. It would be a good way of keeping people connected.
Also, have you thought about creating another bootcamp just for LALA alumni? From
every single edition of the program? Hm…
6. Since we had just one week of bootcamp, I think having more time would allow us to
create stronger connections. Also, doing a conference once a year to update us would
help
7. I think you’re doing it perfectly; the best way to make connections is through stories and
I love how you give people some space to tell their stories, so others can connect to them.
8. Promote workshops (from LALA or LALA's partners) so alumni students can meet, share
experiences or meet their colleagues again, and “recharge” all hopes, and knowledge
gained from the boot camp they were in.
9. Occasional reunions after the camp
10. Promote events or chats with the group.
11. I think what you guys are doing right now is essential, since identifying where, how and
Why is the best path to develop a strong network. A thing that Comes up in my mind is
the WHY, like give us Goals, or challenges or something like this! Create maybe a
FLOCK and delegate To-Do lists to volunteers
12. I believe that what drives myself and, potentially, other like-minded peers such as the
participants of LALA bootcamps to engage with maintaining this connections is the
assurance that the ways created to allow this connections will bring new learnings and
insights or will have a purpose other than something on the lines of "let's talk about life
and see if something interesting comes up". These conversations must have a meaning
behind it. For instance, I spoke to Breno a few times after the bootcamp to help him
structure some ideas for his project, CF. If the reason we set our conversations was "let's
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talk about life" we'd probably let the opportunities pass and keep postponing them,
because they wouldn't configure a strong enough motivation to drive us to accomplish
them, whereas the knowing that the goal of our talk was for me to help him develop his
project was way beyond a "enough level". A suggestion, for example, would be to
schedule online meetings with all of LALA alumni where everyone would have to
prepare 5 minutes presentations about something, they considered relevant to share with
others. Assuming that all of us are quite special, the opportunity would drive our interest
for two reasons: (1) we know that the presentations would bring relevant topics with a
high potential of contributing with our personal and professional development; (2) we'd
get the opportunity to get feedback from others on the contents we presented and the way
we presented it. I believe that, as high potential leaders, we seek learnings and not (only)
friendships. There must be other benefits rather than updating our lives to one another if
you really want to drive our attention and our engagement.
13. LALA is very good make the students create a bond with each other during the camps
and to connect participants with LALA after the camps. Although, LALA could connect
more the participants with themselves, with things like reunions, group challenges, skype
calls, etc.

Would you see yourself using a LALA specific networking platform (like a LALA app or
website)? *

Qualitative responses given:

- "Yes" cannot describe how much I would love to have a platform for LALA
where we would be able to contact other young people who also participated and share
ideas, opportunities, and get to know each other. Just amazing! (Response included in
“Yes” count.)
- Not yet. I believe that the network needs to be way bigger to justify the use of a
specific platform, like Junior Achievement does with Gather (Response included in “No”
count.)

*This question was added to the survey late so not all respondents saw it. There was a
total of 13 responses to this question.
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Would you be willing to have a phone conversation with us to further discuss your responses?