Forming Strategic Partnerships and Exchanging Ideas

ESTABLISHING SOCIAL AWARENESS & YOUTH LEADERSHIP

📍ISLAND-WIDE

Mentes Puertorriqueñas en Acción (MPA) is a nonprofit organization focused on developing the next generation of young Puerto Rican leaders committed to social justice and to solving the island’s challenges. Their mission is to create a more supportive, participatory, and fair society. The “Programa de Apoderamiento y Retención de Agentes de Cambio” (PARACa) is a social action internship program with yearly and summer sessions that provide experiences and tools to develop agents of change for Puerto Rico. As part of this, participants complete a social impact internship in nonprofit organizations around the island while receiving a professional development and social awareness curriculum. In 2022, ConPRmetidos supported the PARACa summer program by financing the placement fee of interns for three (3) nonprofit organizations, CoDEM, PAYE, and Impacto Juventud. The grant also supported the programmatic expenses of the 2022-2023 PARACa full-year fellowship and the PARACa 2023 summer program.

PUERTO RICAN LEADERS MEET WITH KATRINA RECOVERY EXPERTS

📍NEW ORLEANS, USA

ConPRmetidos gave a $14,690 grant to provide a "crash course" to Puerto Rican leaders on how to deploy effective and sustainable recovery efforts. The delegation met with over a dozen New Orleans leaders and organizations involved in economic development, social innovation, entrepreneurship, sustainable building, green energy, and public-school reform. The purpose of the trip was to learn valuable post-Katrina lessons that could be applied to Puerto Rico's recovery and to avoid repeating some of the costly mistakes that were made in New Orleans.

ConPRmetidos documented the lessons learned by the delegation in a publicly available document. This report - Post-Maria Recovery: Lessons and Recommendations from Post-Katrina New Orleans - has been shared with others working on Puerto Rico's recovery.

creating an inclusive entrepreneurial culture

📍sAN juAN, pUERTO rICO

The Boricua Entrepreneur Fest (BE Fest) is an annual event organized by Colmena, a program launched by the Puerto Rico Science, Technology and Research Trust that celebrates, integrates, educates, and promotes entrepreneurship across the island by connecting all the existing business support resources available in Puerto Rico. The main goals of the BE Fest event are (1) to promote and grow inclusive and collaborative business communities in Puerto Rico, (2) to catalyze business thinking in critical sectors and regions in Puerto Rico, and (3) to connect talent inside and outside the island to support the entrepreneurship movement.

ConPRmetidos' grant subsidized the entry cost of the first BE Fest event, (reducing it from $75 to $30) making it more accessible to populations traditionally excluded from participating in conferences and networking events due to the cost of the admission tickets. Through this grant, ConPRmetidos also financed the participation of 80 community leaders, startup-level companies, and social-entrepreneurs. The event was sold out, with over 1,500 participants.