Success and Challenges

Success:
When a college assignment leads into a first of its kind 501 (c) non-profit organization there is doubt that it will be successful, yet Latinitas has done nothing but flourish as you can see from its history timeline. Their program has since touched the lives of 4,000 girls through technology enrichment programs, hosted 5 statewide conferences,70 workshops yearly, and established a Youth Editorial Advisory Board with teens from more than 10 different states. Their online magazine reaches 30,000 readers a month with an estimate of 1500 articles published over the years and more than 1,000 bloggers registered on their social media.  The CEO and COO Alicia Rascon and Laura Donnelly, were journalism students at UT and were fed up with how Latinos were represented in media so they decided to do something about it. While this may seem like a whole bunch of numbers, its a lot more than that. They are directly working hands on with these girls to positively affect their lives and when I was interviewing Laura Donnelly it wasn't the stats that impressed me but she was happy about one in particular. After polling a 100 girls who had started the program when they were small and were now of college age, at least 80% claimed to be enrolled in college and said that Latinitas was their main motivation. Not only did their interpretation of women in technology change but they were also being motivated to attend college and earn their degree. Laura mentioned that what she cared about the most was that the girls were given positive role models to look up to and given the opportunity to not feel underrepresented in media. Overall the lives of everyone involved with Latinitas was really proud of their work and that seems successful to me.

Challenges:
-Finding sponsorships
-Spreading their goal/name
-Getting things done by the deadline
-Recruiting enough interns for every position
-Scheduling of events
-Not enough volunteers

Latinitas Kickstarter

Since I've discussed its history and programs, I think its only right to critically analyze their fundraising efforts. While I was an intern for Latinitas in 2013, our biggest goal that semester was the Kickstarter Campaign. Since its creation in 2002 Latinitas was the first and only of its kind to be a magazine made by and for young Latinas but the goal was to change that. They wanted to make a printed version of the magazine for the first time ever but of course they were not financially able to do that without some fundraising. So they decided the best strategy was to create a Kickstarter Campaign and send it to everyone and everyone that we knew. The campaign started September 26,2013 and decided they would give themselves exactly one month to raise $7,000. They set up incentives along the way which I think was a great strategy for them because it got people excited and waiting for the next surprise promotion. Incentives were anything from bumper stickers to t-shirts with any donation and as the weeks went on word spread fast and we were getting people from all around the nation who wanted to financially back a printed version of the magazine. Their argument for making a printed version was that since many Latinos do not own computers at home they weren't able to access the online version of the magazine and making a printed one would give them something tangible to be proud of.  The 24 page, four color magazine was going to focus on girls health,wellness, and made solely by Latinitas. After 134 backers and 30 days later, the Kickstarter Campaign raised $7,220.00 and actually surpassed their goal with four days to spare. It was monumental and I remember how ecstatic the COO was that they were going to spread Latinitas message in a whole new tangible way. From a critique point of view the Kickstarter was successful for many reasons. It not only raised money but it got a large following of people who had never even heard of Latinitas yet was really excited about the work we were doing and the fact we were the only organization of its kind in the country. The success was not just the printing of the magazine but it was everyone who came together and became familiar with the organization as a whole. A negative critique, to be fair, was that people who backed them by donating money received their thank you gifts long after they were promised due to the high demand of backers and Latinitas being unprepared to accommodate who gave what amount and what their incentive was. The situation was handled and everyone eventually got what they were promised but it was bad on their end. Below is a screenshot of their Kickstarter Campaign.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/latinitas/latinitas-magazine-print-edition/description

Criticism about Latinitas

Even though I could gather nothing negative to say about Latinitas online,when I started asking my friends and family about their thoughts as far as what Latinitas does and what they stand for the feedback was instant. Everyone made a comment about the fact that it is solely for women and solely for Latinas which excludes every other demographic possible. Many times in class Professor Rollins loved to play the devils advocate so that's what I thought I would do with this blog. On one hand their strategy of only targeting young Latinas through media and technology makes sense because they are a demographic that otherwise would have no interaction with any other kind of media. They also face problems that other minorities don't such as the highest teen pregnancy rate in the nation, language barriers, and insanely high suicide rates for their age group. It is also contributing to more women in STEM fields/careers and more science/technology majors in college which is far from a negative thing. Switching roles: is it ethical for Latinitas to only target a specific demographic and exclude everyone else? What if another organization excluded women and focused uniquely on men? Would the same issues be raised? My prediction would be no. A male/one race only organization would never get backlash because we live in a country where division of power and the wage gap is still a very real thing. So while one can debate that leaving ANY demographic out regardless if its gender or race is unethical im going to argue that it isn't solely for the fact that there are plenty of organizations who are focused on a specific demographic and are creating positive social change through their movements. 

Social Media Presence

As with all non-profit organizations getting the word out about what you stand for and what your cause is all about is vital. Now that we live in a world where we are forever plugged into our phone and the internet social media's power has risen to new heights. As we saw from the presentation about the Occupy/Arab Spring movement, social media is an extremely fast, cheap, and productive way to send a message and unite people. As a former social media/PR intern for Latinitas I know all about the way that they try to gain followers, friends, and spread their message. They give the interns the passwords to all of their social media accounts and required us to be constantly tweeting and doing research about how to gain more of a following. As of the time of this project they have 898 likes on their Latinitas Austin Facebook, 5,309 followers on Twitter, and 91,054 views on YouTube. Those are pretty impressive stats if you ask me. Observations of their activity tells me that whatever their interns are doing is working.  Their Facebook and Twitter are updated daily with flyers for their upcoming workshops/summer camps, pictures from past Latinitas, and opportunities to become an intern/volunteer. The YouTube account is focused more on videos that the girls put together themselves from all the projects that they do during their time with Latinitas. I think this is such a crucial move for Latinitas to take advantage of free advertising and especially listing opportunities for new interns because they are a solid backbone of why latinitas can function so efficiently without having to pay for staff. These screenshots below are from their social media accounts just to provide a clear representation of what they are addressing on their accounts and why it is important to them.  

https://www.facebook.com/LatinitasAustin?fref=ts

https://www.youtube.com/user/LatinitasMagazine/about

https://twitter.com/Latinitas