Non-profit capacity building in Latin America

Oftentimes social organizations, especially small ones with limited human resources, have their hands full working for their beneficiaries and don’t have the time or the right tools to communicate the wonderful work they are doing. Usually they have a lot of difficulty keeping their donors informed and attracting new supporters and allies, due to the lack of knowledge of communications tools and strategies.

At MAKAIA we are constantly trying to strengthen social organizations from within, in order for them to better serve their communities by doing more efficient work. This includes helping them with the communication and visibilization of their projects and more importantly the impact they have in their beneficiaries’ lives.   

Through your generosity and the support of local allies, we organized two activities to strengthen the communications skills in social organizations in Colombia: a showcase of best practices to foster the use of effective communication tools such as social networks, newsletters and websites, and a training session dedicately solely to strategies and tools to create and send effective electronic newsletters.

The showcase took place the 22th of August. We opened our doors to more than 20 local organizations to present our communications and visibilization strategies, going over the tools we use and what we take into account when we communicate the impact of our organization. We also conducted an individual diagnosis with each organization in attendance, to help them find their communications strengths and weaknesses, we analyzed what content to post, how frequently and best practices to maximize efforts in social media, websites and newsletters.

On the other hand, the  training session was conducted in Bogotá on the 28th of August. With the help of a local ally, 12 organizations attended the workshop and learned about best practices when creating and sending an electronic newsletter. We focused in giving the organizations practical skills and tools that they could use right away to improve their communications. We reviewed the basis for a great newsletter: what content to share, tips for choosing the best images, frequency of the publication, and how to use statistics to optimize the messages sent to donors and allies to maximize fundraising and visibility opportunities. 

During both events organizations where very excited to have these spaces available to learn how to improve their communications tool and efforts.

Sebastian a communications intern from Educación Sin Fronteras, an organization that works on educations and peace projects, that attended our showcase, said “This is a great opportunity to learn about best and most innovative practices in the sector, and we don’t have spaces like this very often. It has made me want to propose a redesign of the website of our organization, after this it is clear, we must focus on the impact we have on the community, show more images and update the site more frequently.”

Thanks to your generosity many organizations had the oportunity to learn and improve the way they talk about about their work and projects and how they share their impact with donors and allies fosterin true growth. Donate to our project  and share it with your friends and family, so many other organizations can access these development opportunities and work more effectively.