Vivalá Business University

We work to increase the chance of small brazilian entrepreneurs to succeed in an environment of 12 million unemployed in the country. For this to happen, we do voluntourism expeditions combining community-based tourism and professional training using the methodology of the Vivalá Business University. 

We see the impact in two ways:
In the short term these families need resources and we use community-based tourism as an instrument for capital injection in the purchase of travel products and services.
Medium / long term over at least 3 years (quarterly mentorships) we applied the Vivalá methodology so that the small entrepreneurs in distant communities can have a much better chance of succeeding in his small business.
Vivalá's impact in just over 4 years is:
+ 4,000 hours of volunteering
+ U$ 125,000 injected into local economies through community-based tourism
+ 800 volunteers/custumers
+ 150 local businesses in our professional training program

The problem is huge. In Brazil alone, there are 12 million unemployed, a 38% rate of entrepreneurship between the economically active population and most of them are by necessity and not opportunity. And within this spectrum, 3 out of 4 companies go to bankrupt  in up to 3 years due to lack of planning and management skills.
There are many NGOs and other initiatives that work on education issues. The point is that most of them are focused on children and stop providing any assistance to teenagers or adults. In Brazil there is a great lack of empathy with adults, as if they were totally responsible for the lack of professional success, even with few or almost no opportunities for career growth.
And the most fundamental issue is the point of view of financial sustainability. On both sides. The organization, in the case of Vivalá, is a social, economically sustainable business that not only pays for its operations, but also profits, re-invests and increases its revenue and impact. On the other hand, Vivalá's biggest suppliers are the community ones and this makes these small businesses can prosper in practice with their businesses and not with unsustainable donations.

The population is still quite financially needy, with per capita incomes of about $ 50 - $ 100. The overwhelming majority of these people have not finished high school and have few job opportunities. As they live in very distant communities, the logistical cost of continuing their studies in large cities is not viable and therefore we have to go to them to help develop community-based tourism and skills.
Today we work in three communities in the Amazon within the states of Amazonas and Pará, in the state of Maranhão and in Goiás. To reach any community we have to have the support of a community organizer, we have to have at least 20 small businesses interested in receiving the program and we have to have community-based tourist attractions to encourage volunteers to also enjoy and inject capital into economies. The whole methodology is based on conversations with the local population, understanding which are the most deficient points in their operations. Coincidentally, these demands are very similar and, over time, we created the business life university. In all modules, we receive feedback from both community members and volunteers, so we improve our methodology almost every month.

Over the past few years we have been improving our professional training methodology. It should be free, continuous, with measurement of results and monitoring of small businesses. With the scale, we need more and more customers and they seek exactly this type of relationship, deep, horizontal, to co-create solutions together with these small entrepreneurs and a horizontal experience with local people in some of the most beautiful places with great potential in the Brazil. So we brought together people from dozens of states in the country, trained them with our methodology through videos of the specific module they will apply, of the life and internship of the community in the program, and pdf materials with the methodology and commandments of volunteering. When we got there, we trained in the field again, took questions about the material and the next day we mentored the module in question. With presentations, dynamics and material with accessible language, we carry out all business mentoring over 8 hours and the result is an action plan of 3 to 5 attitudes for entrepreneurs to take until the next mentoring. We compiled these actions for follow-up and kept counting the indicators of the number of entrepreneurs, injection of capital on site, number of volunteers, in addition to qualitative research on the process.

I believe that three points make Vivalá's initiative innovative.

First is the financial sustainability. By doing voluntourism, we managed to make Vivalá able to charge the travel expenses of volunteer clients, inject capital into communities and sustain their operating costs. This makes the initiative healthy and has expanded a lot over the years.

Second is the through voluntary trips we managed to bring together people from different backgrounds, social and economic classes. This generates a real exchange of life perspectives, better knowledge of Brazil and a reduction in regional preconceptions.

And finally, the fact that our program has its own methodology, clear, free and continuous. In our 10 modules of professional training and about 3 years of experience in each community, we seek a profound change that will truly transform people's lives for the better. No deep change is made overnight.

Activities
- Provision of community-based services and products for Vivalá groups
- Participation in the free and continuous program "Universidade Vivalá de Negócios" to improve your planning and management skills.

Outputs
- Direct job creation, income generation, jobs and practice in carrying out your key activity.
- Mentoring together with volunteers from various parts of Brazil who are often highly graduated and work in experienced companies.

Short-term outputs
- Income increase
- Increased operational learning
- Implementation of modules such as business definition, financial, sales techniques, marketing techniques, digital environment, creating a team, among others.

Medium term outputs
- Increased income from the business, employees and the local economy.
- Operational empowerment through knowledge.
- Conducting business with organizations other than Vivalá in order to reduce the company's participation in community business.

Long-term outputs
- Community empowerment of knowledge, self-esteem, planning and management.
- Financial independence for the community.

1. 156 small business, 757 people
2. 200 small business, 1000 people
3. 1.000 small business, 5.000 people

With this new coronavirus issue, our activity was deeply affected.

Our objective this year is to survive, to lower fixed costs as much as possible, to use the company's cash as little as possible and not to incur debt, if possible.

With that we are reviewing products, website, commercial strategies, enrollment in national and international programs, and mapping talents for the team.

For the next 5 years, we want to expand our activities in Brazil by 10x, reaching more states, more entrepreneurs, bringing more customers, injecting more capital into the communities and working in programs that empower these communities through professional training, bioconstruction, language teaching and permaculture.

Honestly, we were extremely confident. We have registered a high growth in the last four years not only in sales, but in margins, in profits, in impact. This year our forecast was to reach R $ 1 million in revenue and almost 1,000 volunteers.

In the post-coronavirus environment, the biggest challenge will be cash health, lack of capacity to expand the full time team, and economic resumption of the population so that they can invest again in voluntary trips.

As soon as the pandemic was taken over by the Brazilian government, we immediately created a containment plan where we will spend 70% less to be financially healthy to endure as many months as possible within this scenario of resession. That way, without invoicing anything, we will have the health to remain with cash until the end of the year.

Great sacrifices will be made and we will come out of it all stronger.

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We plan to expand the work to other countries in Latin America after consolidating the model in Brazil. Brazil is the largest country in Latin America, with 210 million people, 26 states and much to work and test within our model. After gaining scale and reaching many other states in Brazil, it will be time to expand to new countries. We don't want to be in a hurry and have a chance to sabotage ourselves.

I can't send with an empty space.

number of full-time staff - 2
part-time staff - 1
contractors or other workers separately - 5

Our founding team consists of two marketers, a developer and a lawyer.

In addition to being a multidisciplinary team, who have known each other for many years and who are highly graduated from an academic point of view, we have a very strong commitment and sense of responsibility to the problem we face.

Our organization is much more than a business, it is a lifestyle, a way of living, acting and transforming. With this passion, we have already gone through a lot and this resilience is essential for us to go through so many other challenges in search of escalating and expanding our solution.

We have partnerships with regional organizations such as residents' associations, cooperatives, community leaders and governmental environmental protection institutions that give us authorization to enter reserve areas and work with these communities.

Key customers - Brazilian women, 25 to 40 years old, from the southeastern region, who have traveled a lot and want to be more deeply involved in significant causes in the world.

Beneficiaries are - Small and micro-entrepreneurs in communities far from the Amazon, Maranhão and Goiás in Brazil. Women and men aged 18 to 70 years, who need more revenue, knowledge and empowerment to evolve their businesses and improve the quality of life in the community.

what product or service you provide - We sell voluntourism expeditions.

In this sale, our organization operates accommodation, transportation, tours, workshops, guides, travel insurance and training, material and Vivalá monitoring during the experience. Itineraries cost from $ 300 to $ 600 and we have an average of 41% operating profit.

We charge only for volunteers and not for community members.

In our second year of operation, we achieved financial sustainability.

As Brazil's venture capital scenario is not as heated as in the USA, this has always been a priority.
This was essential for us to act quickly, seek to generate value and learn to optimize margins.
Now, with more knowledge about the product, communities and how to act, we will make a round of investment to scale our growth faster.
This would happen in the second half of 2020, but now, it will probably happen in the first half of 2021.

I believe that enrolling in strong programs more than ever is fundamental to our resumption of growth after the pandemic.

In addition to the possibility of earning financial resources directly in the program, we will have greater exposure to global initiatives and investors who could take advantage of the exchange rate difference between the dollar / euro against the real and invest in our solution.

Potential connections, infrastructure and mentoring are also facts that increase our appreciation of the program.

I can't send with an empty space.

Our ideal partners would not be just venture capitalists.
The vision of smart money is very attractive, however, we have not yet had it.

Find capital added to people who have operational experience in tourism, volunteering, training programs, impact measurement and international expansion would be perfect.

We are comfortable with the concept of partnership through equity or even without it. For possible new members, we have a vision of growth and understand the reasons for the VC of an eventual exit. At the same time, we are open to interactions even if the other side is not willing to inject capital, such as a partnership to distribute expeditions with major tourism companies, airlines, among others.