Lying About Getting Coffee... Laying the Groundwork

Because the Children in Prison Project is new, I have been spending a lot of time "laying the groundwork" for future projects. Or insert your favorite business euphemism, "networking", stumbleupon, or try this one. What it really means is that I send out a lot of emails, make a lot of phone calls and then count the days until I think it is not rude to email again or call again until I get response. When I am lucky enough to make contact, I usually ask for a meeting over "coffee", which is a white lie, as I am a total caffeine addict and can't touch real coffee.

The truth is that I have had some meetings that will be very important for our future work - with Mexican NGOs, government officials in the federal or local government, even the US and Canadian Embassies (these are great examples of networking as "stumbleupon" networking as my wife's photography clients were the ones to put me in contact with people at the embassies).

In fact, a very promising project I am developing is a partnership with corporations' corporate social responsibility programs to raise funds to get more kids out of prison and into alternative programs. We are still developing the proposal, but I am trying to partner corporations with local Mexican NGOs that work with kids on release programs in order to increase their capacity to take in more kids. We may even be able to provide legal defense to some of these kids. I can't get more specific yet.

So in between emails and un-returned calls, exciting things are happening. February and March promise to bring more of the same, so stay tuned...


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