Project Morrinho Corporation

Morrinho USA gives U.S.-based support to favela-based not-for-profit organizations in Rio de Janeiro.  In the context of Rio, “morrinho” can be an affectionate term for “favela” or "slum," and that is how we see the city’s favelas and their youth.  We are an all-volunteer team that focuses our efforts on fundraising, promotion, and organizational support specifically for projects that work with needy youth and the arts. Taking advantage of the resources that can be shared via the Internet and the larger donor network of the United States, we use a simple and effective approach to support.  Below is a description of what we can do.Promotion.  We have had amazing success with event and product promotion using social networking sites including Facebook, Orkut, Twitter, and Jumo.  Using our professional and personal contacts, and those of the project we support in Rio, we use a cost-free grassroots technique to create supporters and to keep them abreast of new developments.  This works, because after all, friends trust in and want to help out other friends.  Through the consolidation of email addresses, we can also facilitate an informative and low-cost newsletter.Organizational Support.  Key to running a successful organization is a professional-looking public image. We can help our design, launch, and manage a website that reflects what a project is about. We have found that once this is established, it is easier to attract volunteers to may make a sustainable difference in the organization.   By placing on the website that the project is interested in working with international volunteers that would like to spend some time in Rio de Janeiro, we then initiate and facilitate this process.Fundraising.  Our 501(c)3 tax-deductable status we attract an increased number of U.S.-based donations.  We work with our Rio project to accept donations both from the U.S. and abroad via PayPal and Guide Star.  All of our efforts are simple and low cost, which allows us to grant nearly all of the money that we raise to the project that we work with. We know that our idea seems simple, and that’s because it is.  However, through the experience that we have been gaining since 2009, we are connected to a community of people and organizations that want to support the arts-based youth organizations located in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro.