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RedAlmarza |
RedAlmarza is a privately owned company dedicated to the study, design, and execution of public policies and development projects currently associated with urban economy, local development, and digital inclusion for low-income segments.
Through a combination of professional knowledge, on-site experience, and social vocation, its multidisciplinary team participates in generating opportunities, fostering new public policies or improving those currently in place, and primarily, executing services aimed at achieving the inclusion and development of low-income families from both city and country areas. Additionally, RedAlmarza works toward achieving a greater connection between its clients and the private sector.
RedAlmarza’s guiding principle is social entrepreneurship, understood as the putting into practice of a model which combines working passionately with a social mission as the main objective, but within the scope of innovative market-oriented business practices. Thus, based on flexible and participative organization, RedAlmarza creates social value, benefiting the poor and vulnerable by providing them with the services they need to improve their quality of life according to their needs in sectors where offers are limited or deficient.
Innovative proposals which result from the capacity to see beyond solutions in place and even beyond traditional models and paradigms are the hallmark of projects in which RedAlmarza participates.
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Corporative Culture
Vision
Becoming a leading company in generating opportunities for progress within low-income segments in the provision of services and the field of ideas and proposals.
Objective
Offering a network of opportunities for progress to low-income segments, both on an individual and collective basis.
| • | IInnovation and Constant Learning The ability to seek and take in new knowledge and skills for use in our work. |
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| • | Excellence Self-demand in managing with the highest level of quality. |
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| • | Strong social vocation An institutional and personal commitment to supporting vulnerable low-income segments. |
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| • | Integrity Taking on each task with a high sense of duty, responsibility, and honesty. |
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| • | Transparency Faithfulness in interpreting reality when expressing results, as well as thinking clearly and honestly. |
| • | Aimed at organizations within the public and private sectors: - Empirical knowledge. - The ability to innovate. - The ability to articulate. |
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| • | Aimed at individuals: |
For RedAlmarza, a social entrepreneurship is the natural and efficient way of channeling its vocation for working with low-income segments. This vocation, which is shared and continually promoted within the entire work team, is translated into the view that individuals with low income have the potential to progress, but they do not always have the opportunities and services which suit their needs to do so.
The concept of Social Entrepreneurship is acquiring a solid position on a global scale, as it proposes a modern and comprehensive way of dealing with social problems. As a part of this process, a specialized branch of the financial industry is emerging in order to meet the demand being generated, referred to as the Social Capital Market. It has additionally surfaced in academic institutions where experts in the field have dedicated their efforts toward studying and fostering this phenomenon, establishing various definitions from among which RedAlmarza highlights the one formulated by J. Gregory Dees based on distinguished economists, in his document called “The Meaning of Social Entrepreneurship” (*), as it allows for in depth understanding of social entrepreneurship and best represents the feeling which guides the company’s initiatives.
- The Social Entrepreneur: An Agent of Change
The role of a social entrepreneur is recognizing when a part of society is stagnant, as well as seeking and promoting new solutions on a large scale in order to help it out of that state. As opposed to traditional entrepreneurs within the business sector, social entrepreneurs direct their efforts toward generating social value above profits, and unlike most non-profit organizations, they work not only toward obtaining results in the short-term or for specific segments or problems, but rather pursue changes which have an impact on society as a whole over the long term. In this respect, it is relevant to point out that RedAlmarza seeks to maximize its social objective, but strictly subject to financial results (liquidity and profitability) which ensure company sustainability and growth.
Social entrepreneurs discover opportunities where common people only see problems. They believe low-income individuals to be actors in wealth generation processes and contributors in overcoming their conditions rather than only subjects of welfare. That is to say, they foster an economy of inclusion.
The role of social entrepreneurs as agents of change is based on the following: |
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| • | Assuming the objective of creating and developing social value above value for themselves or their company |
| • | Identifying and pursuing new opportunities for fulfilling their objective |
| • | Committing to a continual process of innovation, adaptation, and learning. |
| • | Acting bravely without allowing themselves to be limited by the lack of resources available. |
Social entrepreneurs content themselves neither with giving a man a fish nor teaching a man to fish. They will not rest until they have revolutionized the entire fishing industry.
- Benefits for Society
In order to succeed, it is essential to properly combine services offered with financial results which provide sustainability and growth capacity for the company.
Strongly fostering social entrepreneurship generates great benefits for a country like Chile, which has a medium level of development but large segments of the population still excluded from the services provided by modern economies and societies. On one hand, through it the State may rely on operators capable of greatly increasing the productivity of the resources assigned, thereby making it possible to leverage quick improvement of low-income segments, and on the other hand it offers private companies and unions a method for achieving greater efficiency in the design and execution of their social initiatives.
Sources: David Bornstein, author of “How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas; Bill Drayton, CEO, chairman and founder of Ashoka; The Meaning of “Social Entrepreneurship”, J. Gregory Dees.
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Origins
The origins of RedAlmarza are directly associated with the career of its founder and general manager, Sergio Almarza Alamos, a consultant in urban economy specializing in financing for the social housing sector. Almarza was a consultant to several Ministers of Housing and Urban Development between 1990 and 1996, when he participated in the redesigning and modernization of the current housing policy model. As representative of the Minister, he participated in working groups with representatives of the Ministries of Public Works, Transportation and Telecommunications, and the organization of the urban road concessions program. For these purposes, he conducted studies on financing policies, and toll systems and technologies, working on site in 6 European countries and 4 States of the US.
He also performed the role of manager at PROFIV (1992-2002), a foundation created as a part of a joint venture between the governments of Chile and the US for modernizing Chilean housing policies and their link with the local money market (for more information, see here)
As an expert in housing policies, he has been invited by multilateral financial institutions, governments and business organizations from Latin American countries, the US and China, on over twenty occasions to make presentations or offer consulting in topics of his expertise. Several studies on the issue have been disseminated throughout Latin America by the CEPAL, USAID and UNIAPRAVI.
Commissioned by the Department of Concessions of the Ministry of Public Works, between 1999 and 2000, Almarza directed a comprehensive housing management project to relocate 700 families in the area of the urban section of the “Nuevo Acceso Sur a Santiago” freeway. As a result of this experience, he was able to demonstrate the central idea that he sustained for years—that it is socially expedient for the State to delegate the comprehensive assistance of lower income bracket segments of society to specialized private operators, due to the favorable valuation of the quality of their service by D and E segments.
All this lead him to found RedAlmarza in 2002, a foundation which has decisively focused on opening the secondary social housing market, a solution which is currently replacing the construction of low standard new housing in large cities as the preferred alternative by D and E segment families to acquire their own homes.
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Business Model
An approach focused on social entrepreneurship requires a flexible, dynamic, and inclusive organizational design which favors innovation. This is why RedAlmarza is structured from a network organization perspective aimed at projects and products. Thanks to the horizontal relationship among its work teams, the company takes advantage of the synergy generated upon integrating its employees’ and clients’ knowledge and ideas both in consultancy services and public policy proposals as well as in the service provided its clients from low-income segments. This fosters constant innovation, which arises from the knowledge generated by the company or incorporated by the same from the networks with which it is associated.
Aware of the fact that low-income segments require a special approach—due to the fact that, based on how they are viewed, traditionally they have been discriminated by companies and institutions—RedAlmarza offers them a service in which respect and kindness are the key factor in the service provided, making them feel welcome and their needs understood. In order for this to take place, all personnel dealing directly with clients have received social professional training and are trained and instructed within the company.
The commitment toward excellence in service which guides the company additionally includes competitive prices (within possibilities based on productivity), minimum response times and efficient processes with full technological support, which is achieved thanks to integrated work by the team of executives and technicians with customer service professionals. This synergy has generated positive results, as has been proven by the company through client satisfaction surveys and systematic growth of the demand for its services, prompted by “mouth to mouth” recommendations.
Within this scope, RedAlmarza has designed a customer service model aimed at achieving awareness of their realities, for which it has created various instances for on-site participation, through which clients may express their interests and needs.
Following are the pilot projects operating in the La Pincoya and Yungay shanty-towns in the districts of Huechuraba and La Granja, in Santiago:
- Local offices.
- Neighbourhood directories.
- Local development projects with leadership participation by the clients themselves.
- Alliances with Neighbors’ Associations and other social organizations.
Additionally, as of 2009 innovative events were held with clients.
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2008 -2010 Triennial Plan
Consolidation of 3 work areas: urban economy, local development, and digital inclusion;
Expansion throughout the country:
2008: Presence in 3 regions.
2009: Completing coverage of primary cities between La Serena and Puerto Montt.
2010: Regional densification in small urban centers
Systematic expansion to other cities throughout Chile of the management model implemented in various neighborhoods.
Alliances for boosting networks and/or implementing new products and services.
Forming alliances with private companies for implementing business inclusion.
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