In this inspiring episode, Zac sits down with Carmen Lydia, the powerhouse behind The Madrina Project in San Antonio, TX. Carmen shares her heartfelt journey from receiving a donated dress to building a nonprofit that empowers young women through confidence-building events and access to formalwear for milestone events like prom and graduation.

Carmen discusses the evolution of the project, the creation of the annual Empowerment Conference, and the deep community partnerships that sustain their mission. Tune in to hear how The Madrina Project creates moments of dignity, celebration, and transformation—one dress at a time.

Host:

Zac Brown: “The Non-Profit Guy”

Linkedin

Guest:

Carmen Lidia Fajardo, Founder of The Madrina Project

LinkedIn

YouTube:

Podcast:

Host:

Zac Brown: “The Non-Profit Guy”
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zacjordanbrown/

Guest:

Carmen Lidia Fajardo, Founder of The Madrina Project
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carmen-lidia-fajardo-99325723b/

The Madrina Project Website:
https://www.themadrinaprojectsa.org/

The Madrina Project LinkedIn Page:
https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-madrina-project/posts/?feedView=all

Find Us:
YouTube: / @theboostchannel
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/50nKlDy81jHuoobIFLwiHy
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/beyond-giving/id1803474427
Facebook: / theboostchannel
Website: https://theboost.fm/beyond-giving/

In this inspiring episode, Zach sits down with Carmen Lydia, the powerhouse behind The Madrina Project in San Antonio, TX. Carmen shares her heartfelt journey from receiving a donated dress to building a nonprofit that empowers young women through confidence-building events and access to formalwear for milestone events like prom and graduation.

Carmen discusses the evolution of the project, the creation of the annual Empowerment Conference, and the deep community partnerships that sustain their mission. Tune in to hear how The Madrina Project creates moments of dignity, celebration, and transformation—one dress at a time.

Topics Covered

Origin Story:
Carmen’s personal experience that sparked The Madrina Project.

Mission in Action:
How the organization provides dresses and builds confidence.

The Empowerment Conference:
Learn to Earn model with education, leadership, wellness, and self-worth sessions.

Creative Programming:
From pop-up boutiques to musical welcomes and Hot Cheetos with cheese.

San Antonio Roots:
Why collaboration and community make this city special for nonprofit work.

Tech & Tracking:
How Nonprofits HQ is helping The Madrina Project grow sustainably.

Future Vision:
Girl-led conference development days and expanding partnerships.

How to Get Involved

Donate Dresses:
Particularly gray velvet hangers and boutique-quality gowns.

Sponsor or Donate:
One-time or recurring contributions welcome

Become a Partner:
Host a drop-off site or sponsor an event

Volunteer:
Join conference events or assist at school pop-ups

Location Focus:
Primarily San Antonio, but open to regional impact

Quote of the Episode
“It’s not a handout. It’s a moment of empowerment—and every girl deserves that.” – Carmen Lydia

0:06

welcome to beyond giving your favorite non-profit podcast on the boost network

0:11

i’m zach the nonprofit guy and today we have a super special episode with a good

0:15

friend of mine carmen from the madrina project the madrina project is a local

0:19

non-profit here to san antonio that really empowers young women and girls to

0:24

achieve everything that they need to achieve and yeah so we’re super excited

0:29

to have you carmen thanks for joining us today i’m so excited to be here and so

0:33

excited that y’all are starting this new podcast i can’t wait to listen every

0:36

tuesday definitely yep episodes every tuesday

0:40

cool so can you tell us kind of a little bit about you i was so excited when we

0:44

were going to have an episode featuring you and the madrina project because your

0:48

story is just it’s so powerful right it’s something that people can really

0:51

rally behind it’s inspiring it’s it’s something that when you think non-profit

0:56

when you think people genuinely doing good in their communities you think oh

0:59

carmen you think the madrina project so can you kind of tell us a little bit

1:03

about your background and what kind of led you to this path of making impact in

1:07

your communities and then kind of into the madrina project my name is carmen

1:11

lydia and i serve as san antonio’s fairy godmother through the madrina project we

1:15

provide new and gently used dresses for high school girls if they can’t find a

1:20

dress or a ford address for their prom homecoming graduation we put together a

1:25

boutique collection where we provide it for them at our annual empowerment

1:30

conference and also we offer school boutique pop-ups where we bring the

1:35

boutique to the schools always feel so happy to hear that people see the

1:39

mission clearly in our organization but it really started out of i was 21 i was

1:44

in college kind of eating ramen noodles and

1:47

a cute boy invited me to a military ball and if you’ve ever been to a military

1:52

ball you know that they’re gown events it’s not like you can show

1:56

up in a cocktail or just something that you would wear at a graduation

1:59

and i just felt like i was a little bit too old to be asking my parents my

2:03

hard-working parents for a dress and so i was coaching little league soccer at

2:08

that point and one of the ladies on my team said hey there’s this local woman

2:14

who has a small prom closet out of her house let me see if she’ll help you she

2:19

normally only does it for high school girls

2:21

and i said okay that would be awesome a little reluctant

2:25

because you know i felt bad that i needed the support but

2:29

we went to her house she had one little coat closet that probably had 50 to 100

2:34

dresses in there and she was able to give me this purple dress that i still

2:39

to this day love but also when i see pictures i cringe a little bit

2:43

and i got to go to the ball per se and that

2:47

day when she was helping me she happened to tell me that the reason

2:52

she started it was her three daughters were in high school

2:55

she was helping her friends her daughter’s friends and that once the

2:59

last one graduated they were gonna stop doing it

3:02

and i thought well that sucks and so i said well do you mind if i take

3:07

it over and i was very young and naive and didn’t know what i was getting

3:11

myself into so i i said yeah let’s do it and so the first

3:16

year we went to thomas jefferson high school and did it together she taught me

3:20

how to meet the counselors the parent liaisons how to navigate getting into

3:25

the school the background checks those things

3:28

and i was

3:30

just fell in love with that moment when girls put on a dress and you can

3:36

see the giddiness you can see when it

3:40

when it fits and so after that

3:44

we kept trying to stay in the school model like go to the school

3:49

but it felt very shamey to the girls like

3:54

yeah i was wondering kind of what that looks like right because you have this

3:57

really cool mission right where you’re providing these these dresses that may

4:01

otherwise be unattainable to these girls right but then how do you like how do

4:06

you address that oh i i feel shame because i needed help i needed like how

4:11

are you turning that into wow i got to take part in the madrina project right i

4:15

got to receive this dress like what does that look like for your schools yeah and

4:19

in 2013 we kind of started realizing when i say we it’s like me and three

4:25

other people nice

4:27

we started realizing what are the things that changed our lives and for me it was

4:33

learning about cafe college truly learning about the alamo colleges

4:38

locally my faith my friends my family these core conversations that were

4:43

starting to shape my life and so i thought okay

4:47

we clearly have this problem where coming into a cafeteria or a teacher’s

4:52

classroom has this shame feeling to it they’re having to leave

4:55

their classroom and feel

4:59

poor impoverished to some degree so that because they have to go into that room

5:04

and so we started thinking okay how do we start a conference and at that point

5:07

i didn’t even know how to host a conference or anything but i knew that’s

5:10

what i thought in my heart to do and so i

5:14

was started telling people and i met somebody who was able to connect me with

5:18

a whole team of a non-profit and so we built the conference where not

5:23

only do they get to go shopping at the end but it we call it learn to earn

5:28

okay fun fabulous conference for them to come

5:32

to for free and then we

5:36

ask them to learn by participating in education leadership wellness and

5:40

self-worth sessions we have giveaways we have food we have games all these things

5:45

to try to give them the best day possible

5:48

but by them investing their time they learned to earn the free shopping

5:53

is this okay that we organically created so so it’s like it’s a free event that

5:59

kind of brings people together and gives them a way to kind of earn this this new

6:03

dress this uh that they might need so that kind of

6:06

like eliminates that that shame because it’s not it’s not

6:10

being given to me because i can’t afford it right i win i did this thing i

6:14

learned about these different things at your empowerment conference and then i

6:17

was able to get this beautiful dress that i can take to prom or the military

6:21

ball or or wherever that goes absolutely and i think that was the key component

6:26

for a while we stopped doing school pop-ups because we thought the

6:30

conference was the answer but because transportation can be such a

6:34

limitation for families in those same circumstances we decided post pandemic

6:40

that we’ll keep the conference and the conference is now an incentive to be the

6:45

first shoppers of our boutique so okay best dresses are the girls that come to

6:51

the conference would have the advantage of getting those dresses

6:55

but we

6:56

are now trying to make more effort with making

7:00

relationships with the districts and with the schools

7:03

to pre-put dates on the calendar for us to bring

7:07

the boutique to the campus okay so

7:10

yeah we’re re-energizing the conference but also

7:15

re-prioritizing the skull pop-ups that’s that’s cool too because like you

7:19

said like transportation is is tough especially especially um in those

7:24

circumstances so the fact that you’re you’re bringing that same kind of

7:27

selection of dresses right to these schools so you’re kind of expanding

7:32

accessibility to it you’re making it kind of a normal part of life that’s

7:36

exciting that’s pretty cool um and so this empowerment conference like when

7:40

does it happen what does what like specifically happens at this event is it

7:44

like different classes different particular speakers like what what can

7:49

we look forward to for the next empowerment conference for 2025 it’s

7:53

actually two weeks away it’s february 22nd this year we’re hosting it at the

7:59

girls inc building oh cool leia was so generous to offer us her space for the

8:04

next two years to host the conference and so for the first hour of the

8:08

conference we call it an empowerment fair

8:10

it’s essentially resources that we’ve

8:14

found in san antonio that high school girls would benefit from

8:17

um cafe college is like one of my favorite

8:21

that i i’m that’s a top priority for me for them to be there have a table for

8:26

them to be able to give girls the address we make sure that through the

8:29

programming they know where cafe college is because if you ask

8:32

them they’re like oh well i’ve kind of seen it on the highway but i just

8:35

thought it was a coffee shop yeah so what like what specifically is cafe

8:39

college cafe college is actually a college resource center where you can

8:43

get paired up with an advisor as early as i know specifically as early as your

8:49

freshman year okay so you can start going there to learn about what

8:53

scholarships you’re you’re especially fit for but then also

8:58

what other academic goals you could set for

9:02

your high school right if you’re trying to make yourself stand out for

9:05

a university or for a program they might want you to volunteer specifically at

9:11

like a humane society or at the food bank depending on what those dreams are

9:16

for a student cafe college can help you start to think

9:21

critically about how to build up your resume how to apply for those

9:24

scholarships how to understand the resources the funding

9:29

that you can start working on today

9:33

for college in the future okay so it’s like a resource that kind of gives you a

9:36

leg up on figuring out how you’re going to pay for college and like kind of

9:40

figuring out how to position yourself for what you want to achieve that way

9:43

yeah and for me it was so critical because i am a first generation

9:48

college student and so for me my parents didn’t know how to do fasfa they didn’t

9:52

know how to help me apply through the alamo

9:55

colleges system there was just so many limitations from my family to help me

10:02

and walk me through it i have friends who are like oh my mom went with me to

10:06

meet with my advisor and advocated for me and i think that’s so beautiful but

10:10

that’s not a parent that we all have not because

10:13

our parents don’t want to be those advocates for us but because they might

10:16

not have that model yet to provide it and so how do we

10:21

help girls find those resources in san antonio because we are such a beautiful

10:27

high resource city but a lot of times kids just don’t know where do i go for x

10:32

y or z that’s true and like you don’t if you

10:35

don’t know where to look or even sometimes what you’re looking for like

10:39

it’s really hard to find those connections so so you really take you

10:42

know just beyond the the dress right beyond that that particular that moment

10:47

at prom or wherever you really help provide resources and when you talk

10:51

about empowering these these young women and these girls it’s it’s really to set

10:54

them up for what they’re trying to accomplish in life right so beyond just

10:58

address beyond like resource connections it’s like the whole package kind of yes

11:02

absolutely and so just to

11:05

i got a little excited about cafe college but it’s the empowerment fair

11:08

then we open up with we call it a musical welcome so it’s just like

11:13

whatever fun girl music is popular at the time we have a friend that leads it

11:17

then we have the education session the well uh the

11:21

leadership the wellness and the self-worth session and our leadership

11:24

session is actually now being led by the young women’s leadership academy oh cool

11:29

so actually a session led by girls which is very exciting i started when i was

11:34

young so it was fine when it was like my friends and my peers but now that i’m

11:38

you know 35 i need to make sure that we’re still curating a conference it’s

11:44

fit for a high school girl that’s going to engage them and so we’re really and

11:48

then once the program part is over we share we open the boutique and so

11:54

that’s been the catalyst to making it not feel

11:59

like a sad handout more like an exciting

12:02

handout because

12:04

when we you know at palo alto they have an actual curtain that we we get to set

12:09

up the boutique behind the stage oh cool we actually get to like do a countdown

12:14

and raise up the thing also it’s like this huge unveiling and it’s like this

12:17

really cool exciting thing that’s awesome day the dresses have kind of

12:21

flirted with them because that we put the

12:24

the um car uh not carpet curtain the wall carpet wall carpet we put it

12:30

about eighty percent of the way so they see the bottom oh okay

12:36

and then at the end of the day it kind of gets unveiled and so we’re right now

12:40

we’re working out the logistics on how to do that at the girls inc building

12:43

because it’s a beautiful building but we just don’t have that same stage capacity

12:47

definitely and so but we’re still working to make that like wow element

12:52

when we opened the conference uh boutique experience yeah definitely

12:57

that’s pretty cool and so like as this has kind of evolved you know i know

13:03

for example like when i go to a show or thing or whatever i have like a very

13:07

short attention span right give me the 30 second tick talk summary and like i’m

13:10

good to go how have you kind of evolved your the empowerment conference and the

13:14

kind of services that you’re offering to really fit that that niche of of uh

13:19

young girls right high school girls and um how have you kind of evolved and

13:24

really tailored what you offer to them and what things have you learned well

13:28

the first thing i say is we try to listen to girls what what do they want

13:32

to talk about what do they want to listen to what are the questions they

13:35

currently have and then finding speakers that not only can answer those questions

13:40

but come from the same humble roots that they come from i think

13:44

seeing a speaker from the beginning say

13:48

with this list of accomplishments when they can start their conversation by

13:52

saying hey 20 30 years ago i was in the same place you were i come from the same

13:57

kind of family from the same economic background these these commonalities we

14:02

create this unification between the speakers and the girls versus oh it’s

14:08

just some grown-up talking to me and so i would say those are two of the main

14:13

things that we do but practical practically speaking we

14:18

give away epic prizes we give them a lot of good snacks

14:23

snacks are important snacks are important so it’s all right lean back a

14:27

little hard uh hot cheetos with cheese always

14:29

slap and wait wait wait hot cheetos with cheese

14:34

what kind of cheese are you putting on these hot cheetos

14:37

is it like that nacho like or is it like it’s like it’s like on sal it’s on it’s

14:41

across from like where brown coffee used to be the rio sir okay okay like the

14:45

popular like ice cream truck cheese wait ice cream truck i have so many

14:50

questions for you now carmen

14:53

okay so okay we’re gonna have to we’re gonna

14:56

have to come back to the hot cheetos and cheese at some point but uh okay so

14:59

snacks so plenty of snacks giveaways and then we create social media challenges

15:04

for them all day that they get to engage with at different points so throughout

15:09

the day if they don’t have social media on the back of their lanyards there’s

15:12

all their other challenges that they can do with the volunteers to continue to

15:18

put their name in for the giveaways after every session so after every

15:22

session we give them a little break go breathe go get a snack something and

15:26

when they come back we make sure they get in their seats by doing a great

15:30

giveaway before the next speaker comes up so they’ve just been rewarded and

15:35

they’re like kind of more engaged because they’re like oh my gosh i want

15:38

to be next and so i feel like but it i feel like

15:42

that’s going to be an ongoing journey of learning

15:46

that’s why not to put a plug but that’s why i’m so

15:49

excited about working with nonprofit hq i think there’s so much opportunity for

15:55

us as a team to learn more about the girls how do we understand

15:59

where their needs are what something as simple as like what’s their favorite

16:03

song what’s their favorite ice cream these are some things that i haven’t

16:07

been able to navigate how to create a profile and so i think nonprofit hq is

16:12

gonna open up a world of understanding one

16:17

the girls we serve and two what their their real needs are i think it’s it’s

16:22

fine to ask them a question but when you can

16:25

see the data be consistent absolutely i think it’ll be i’m so excited to see

16:31

what will happen with our org as we grow up and and grow into the nonprofit

16:36

hq era yeah absolutely and um for those that

16:40

don’t know nonprofits hq is like a unified management platform that is uh

16:44

that’s my startup um that helps organizations like carmen’s really focus

16:48

in and amplify their impact like manage overhead that sort of thing and so when

16:53

you’re thinking about like these different tools and these different

16:56

processes that you use um because like you said you started the madrina project

17:00

or you kind of took it over when you were like young and naive you said right

17:04

so like what are some of those like those those challenges or those places

17:07

where maybe you stumbled and wanted to run or like what did that kind of look

17:10

like as an experience and you were pretty young when you started this too

17:13

right i don’t know if i’m allowed to ask how

17:16

old you were i know i when i got the dress okay so the first time i gave away

17:22

a dress i was 22 now i’m 35. and i i mean obviously when you’re young you

17:28

think you know how what you’re doing of course guys how much you don’t know

17:33

and i um

17:35

meeting you was so exciting because i realized

17:40

maybe i can teach the next young ceo the next new young founder how to use a

17:46

platform like yours before you spend 10 years of your life

17:50

working on something you love and don’t have a way to track the

17:55

impact you’ve created the the sacrifices you’ve made there’s

17:59

so much that i invested in i never

18:03

there’s girls we i know we impacted but i i will never know how to tell their

18:08

story and so i think that was um one of the biggest challenges i faced in that

18:13

young leadership without a crm without that support was

18:19

maintaining relationship with our girls and with our donors

18:23

that’s true and like being able to tell that story is such an incredibly

18:28

important part of what you’re doing too right because it helps you with like

18:32

donors and grants and things of that nature right but it also helps kind of

18:36

change that idea that getting a getting address getting these resources like

18:40

this is an exciting thing that’s available to um two girls in is it just

18:45

san antonio is it is it outside of san antonio yeah here they they can come

18:49

yeah we had we had a school bus come from natalya in 2016 and i i remember

18:55

being like i didn’t even know we could get a school bus it was one of

18:59

the highlights of my life because it was just like 50

19:03

girls coming out of a school bus and then 50 girls getting back on a school

19:06

bus with a dress for their prom and their graduation a lot of them how so

19:11

how did tell us kind of a little bit like let’s unpack that a little like

19:14

dive into that where did this school bus come from how did they learn about what

19:18

you were working on and then how did you like kind of facilitate that because

19:22

that’s that’s pretty cool you know impacting your local community and

19:25

starting there is an amazing step and then as you kind of expand bringing that

19:30

that these opportunities and resources that you folks create to other people is

19:35

kind of it’s exciting but kind of really hard to scale outside of your immediate

19:39

area absolutely so i call like

19:43

moments when i get to meet like someone like you someone like the lady melissa i

19:47

call them these like god moments because it’s like how in the world did like you

19:51

you moved here from like out of texas meeting me for a little san antonio you

19:56

know hood girl like there’s just these moments where life there’s no way it’s a

20:00

coincidence right and so i met melissa through they threw us this big party

20:06

called the fancy frock as a dress drive there’s the fancy what let’s see frock

20:12

uh frog f-r-o-c-k i believe okay okay

20:17

who knows okay cool i’m gonna have to google that to know

20:21

what that is but basically it’s like you bring your

20:25

your clothing to donate okay and so i i met erica prosper

20:31

probably in 2014 and we just kind of started meeting up for

20:35

chalupas and seeing how we aligned in certain ways about empowering

20:39

women and young women especially this is before she was first lady so i just kind

20:45

of knew the heb research lady and

20:49

her she was going to host a dress drive in her house like hey i’ll invite a few

20:53

of my friends over and we’ll collect dresses

20:57

well she told her lady village and her if anyone’s met her lady village they

21:01

are next level when they choose to do something they

21:04

kind of steroid they do it big yeah but anything that

21:08

martha martinez gets her hands on is going to be excellent so she told martin

21:12

martinez like hey i want to do this dress drive and martha just took it over

21:16

and made it it was like the quinceanera i

21:19

never had nice okay say quinceanera i never had

21:23

for the people who will judge me for saying that in an english accent but

21:28

we they hosted this event where they just

21:31

invited all the women in their network to come eat charcuterie drink wine and

21:35

bring a dress and make a donation if you could

21:38

and so at that event i met melissa martinez who is now on our advisory

21:42

board but at that point she was just apparent liaison at natalya isd okay

21:47

okay so she she’s like yeah i would love to bring

21:50

some girls in the moment and she’s like can you come to my school and promote it

21:55

and we would love to encourage the girls to come never says anything about

21:59

bringing a school bus so i’m obviously expecting a group of natal girls from

22:04

natalya to show up but never in my life would i guess a whole school bus

22:09

so when she wants to bring a couple of girls over she means 50 on a school bus

22:15

nice and that just happened because the kind

22:18

of community kind of rallied behind what you were doing to do this dress drive

22:22

and that’s where that connection was made so like when you’re talking about

22:26

community involvement because that’s incredibly important for non-profits

22:29

right how has the community other than like this dress drive really supported

22:34

what madrina project is and helped evolve it into what it is today so i

22:38

like to say we had a very organic first 10 years because we

22:42

never had the

22:44

the donor structure we never had a crm we never

22:48

honestly we didn’t even have google sheets for so long it was just like this

22:53

person brings cupcakes this person brings

22:56

you know the tacos for the volunteers in the morning it was very organic and

23:00

when i met this group of ladies they started challenging me to ask

23:05

how do we build partnerships not just small time donations

23:09

and so through

23:11

partnerships with other nonprofits we started having this model where we had a

23:16

fiscal agent and they were like sasd foundation when i really

23:22

needed a laptop the spurs donated to sasd foundation and then said foundation

23:28

gifted us the laptops wow okay how to hold that

23:33

dollar and so it was just a very collaborative time of

23:38

people seeing what we were doing and they said i want to help do that and

23:43

when they saw my limitations they figured out a way to make it work

23:49

legitimately within the limitations they saw in this young 24 25 year old girl

23:55

who’s still like eating ramen noodles in in college you know and so i think

23:59

that’s one of the and i i haven’t done life in another place long enough to

24:04

know if that’s very special to san antonio but i i would say i i believe

24:10

it’s special to san antonio that we’re very collaborative it’s very family

24:14

oriented even when you’re not from the same family

24:17

when you’re gonna have a party you know someone brings the rice and someone

24:20

brings the cupcakes and it’s just a very collaborative city no matter

24:25

if it’s you know you’re helping someone raise money for cancer

24:29

or it’s you know helping a girl go to prom definitely yeah san antonio like it

24:34

is a larger city right most people don’t realize and i

24:37

even after living here for like six months thought it was a really small

24:40

area right and it’s not it’s like what is it the sixth or seventh largest city

24:44

in the country or something crazy like that but it is that it’s that very like

24:48

one of the largest small towns that that you’ll be in right everybody’s there

24:51

it’s a culture of help helping collaboration um which is really cool

24:55

and i think that’s why a lot of people a lot of change makers like

25:00

yourself see success in san antonio right because of that kind of let’s help

25:04

let’s collaborate let’s all make change culture and that’s super important

25:09

because you know as you can attest to running running an organization by

25:13

yourself without a lot of support is probably really dang hard right and so

25:18

the community being able to kind of rally behind a cause and and really

25:21

support that is what is the difference between an organization that’s doing

25:26

good and struggling you know to to amplify that impact and to to make the

25:30

change that they want and an organization that has the resources and

25:34

the support and the connections and everything they need to be successful

25:37

and to i don’t know launch an empowerment conference for

25:40

example right so so that’s really cool um

25:44

what are what does the future for the madrina project look like what is

25:49

like what is the next big thing after your empowerment conference next month

25:53

well it’s like the next big milestone that your organization will kind of

25:56

evolve into that’s a great question so one of the

26:00

programs that we’re really excited to really dive into is having a conference

26:06

development day led by high school girls and they curate their own conference so

26:13

through camp days there’s different girl camps

26:16

that happen throughout the summer we’re gonna have one

26:20

day that’s programmed of like let’s build

26:23

your your perfect conference

26:25

and so we’ll actually be workshopping with them all day like hey if you were

26:30

going to lead an education session what would it look like would they be

26:33

talking about scholarships would they be talking about okay how to get money for

26:37

it or or how to build your resume so we’re

26:41

we’re trying to build a collaborative workshop day where we

26:46

truly get to hear from them what they want in the significant new

26:51

empowerment conference annually so then so then your your attendees are

26:55

are curating the content so you know that it’s very relevant to what they

26:59

need that’s a really cool idea and that’s something that what are they

27:02

called like unconferences or i forget the term but essentially the people that

27:06

are attending determine what sessions are on the stage who’s speaking what

27:10

they’re talking about and you actually have a lot more engagement and a lot

27:14

more impactful actions or interactions with your attendees that way so that’s

27:19

really cool what are some of the like unknowns in in making that happen like

27:24

what do you as an organization need to make those days a reality

27:28

definitely snacks that’s all snacks hot cheetos and cheese

27:36

those are like core pillars of it but finding

27:41

girl or partners that already have

27:45

programming because i think building programming is

27:48

such a financial time and team investment and madrina is nowhere near

27:53

at the capacity to be able to host a week camp and

27:58

have a com one specific conference day and so

28:01

through building local partnerships like with girls inc

28:05

and young women’s leadership academy and we hope to build more of those where

28:09

they already have these high capacity amazing young women that

28:15

are excellent leaders who are critical thinkers who are dreamers who

28:19

are doers how do we find those places that are

28:22

really doing those things with excellence

28:25

and then giving them a conference day workshop where they can let their

28:30

creativity truly thrive and hearing from them what

28:35

are the things that they want to advocate for who are the friends at

28:38

their school that they feel they see marginalized that they want to advocate

28:42

for like i think they’re this is a very brave and courageous generation and we

28:48

have to create room for them to

28:52

use their voice and i think that’s building those partnerships locally with

28:57

girl orgs is where we’re hoping to really make that a catalyst

29:02

yeah that’s that makes sense and you know when you’re talking about making

29:06

room for voices to be heard and i think that that really does it sounds like

29:11

goes to like the core of of your your mission right uh these these girls they

29:17

they exist they have what they need to be successful to accomplish what they

29:21

want in life um and so i think that’s really cool it’ll be it’ll be cool to

29:25

kind of follow along and see how that evolves and then and see what those look

29:28

like so in terms of how people can get involved with the madrina project what

29:34

are your current like immediate needs and then how can people in the community

29:38

either volunteer or financially support or how can how can they connect

29:42

absolutely so our website is the madridinaprojectsa.org

29:47

and so on our website we have multiple ways that people can get connected

29:51

volunteering is a wonderful opportunity because you get to come and enjoy the

29:55

conference with them and see the experience because i think when you

29:59

come to the conference you can really see

30:01

the needs of our program and also the needs of the girl so it

30:06

makes it gives you a very clear view of what the needs are but very practical

30:11

needs is we always need gray velvet hangers that’s that’s like gray velvet

30:15

hangers forever and always the velvet is what helps them keep

30:20

stay hung and we just try to try to keep it oh so

30:23

the dress doesn’t like slide off the okay interesting and is gray like just

30:28

how they come or is that like is that a specific like

30:32

color that elevates the dress or like is there science behind this gray velvet

30:37

hanger because the white hangers get very dirty

30:41

okay the black ones can bleed into the dress color

30:46

and then we’re trying to not make everything pink so

30:50

uh the gray is a very neutral color because we want the dress to stand out

30:54

on it not the hanger itself and we’ve had hot pink ones and it’s like oh i’m

30:58

just looking at hangers not really dresses but

31:01

gray uh gray hangers are always they’re sold at target walmart

31:07

some hebs have them you know you can order them on amazon and always we’re

31:11

always looking for boutique partners that can serve as dress drop-off

31:16

locations we have a partnership level if they decide to be a drop-off location

31:20

for three six months nine months or 12 months that helps them get a partnership

31:25

level uh through the org and then also just monetary partnership levels we have

31:30

that available on our website as well so if people want to start by giving on a

31:35

small scale and see how we use that giving to bless and like

31:39

support our girls then we can i mean but if somebody has you know a million

31:45

dollars and they want to give a give us then you’ll definitely take a million

31:48

dollars absolutely so much impact

31:52

and you know through our through my twenties there was

31:55

so much um i say selfless uh but it was almost self-sacrifice i

32:01

realized now um you know i i love paying for the

32:05

balloons and for the hot cheetos and all these things but the

32:09

this past year we’ve had to sit down and look at what our conference costs what

32:13

are programming what the pop-ups you know if i wasn’t swapping my

32:17

personal debit card what would this be costing for us to run as an organization

32:22

and that number was a little scary and so we’re working to

32:27

by working with nonprofit hq and just building some stronger partner local

32:31

partnerships we’re hoping to not be just this organic org but really become a

32:36

non-profit that san antonio can support and we continue to do our

32:42

our programs and resources for girls definitely yeah and like being able to

32:46

like understand those costs it helps you become more financially sustainable as

32:51

an organization but also it helps you understand what you should ask for right

32:56

you know if you need a sponsor to cover your conference and it costs this amount

32:59

of dollars add a little buffer this is how much you ask for for that sponsor

33:03

right so that’s that’s really cool awesome and i i if you don’t mind me

33:06

sharing like i think as young non-profit leaders something that i wish i

33:10

understood understood sooner was i’m an event planner so i’ve been donating my

33:16

my services my talent for so many years and i i wish that i had just tracked it

33:21

more clearly like hey this week i invested 15

33:25

hours so just as if you know because it’s a non-profit podcast for anybody

33:30

who is in that startup phase take the notes you know really

33:34

show the value of of how badly you are committed to it because

33:38

then when you meet that donor that says well how many hours a week do you spend

33:42

on this you have the tangible proof that this week i work 50 hours you know and

33:48

so i think that’s something i wish i had understood sooner definitely yeah and

33:53

that also shows that you like it shows your level of commitment to your

33:57

organization right especially if you’re asking for a large donation right they

34:01

want to know that when they give you their this money that you’re you’re

34:04

going to to do good with it right and you’re going to use it for your mission

34:08

so that’s true and like a lot of a lot of

34:11

startup non-profit leaders they don’t realize that their time and energy does

34:16

have value and so they don’t think that that happens in the startup world on the

34:19

for-profit side as well too they don’t think to track that stuff because you

34:23

don’t track zero it’s zero right but but absolutely yeah thank you so

34:27

much are there any other things that you want to share about your organization

34:31

about you um to our audience i would say join us on instagram at the madrina

34:36

project we that’s where we stay up to date on who our new partners are the

34:41

girls we’re serving and different ways to volunteer and get plugged in awesome

34:45

awesome cool and we’ll put the link to your website and instagram in the um

34:50

description and distribute it across the network um thank you so much for joining

34:55

us this has been a really exciting conversation and you know being able to

34:58

have conversations with change makers like this and really show the impact

35:02

that people have in their communities especially local entrepreneurs here to

35:06

san antonio is what this is all about thanks for joining in to the beyond

35:11

giving podcast on the boost network sponsored by nonprofits hq

35:16

keep an eye out for future episodes and visit us at theboost.fm beyondgiving to

35:20

learn how you can participate in the show as well