Philanthropy is a way of showing your love and it's probably the nicest one.
Imagine this scene: its October 2010 and I'm chilling with a couple of friends in Mexico
City, where I live, enjoying my recess, talking about sports, music, homework, girls... teenagers
stuff. We were particularly recalling the soccer match we had seen the night before
and how curious it was for me seeing it being played with a pink soccer ball.
Have you ever seen pink in sports? I immediately related it to all the pink products I could
see in my house that actual month and to all of the ads I had seen and listened in the
radio and TV announcing breast cancer awareness. The movement was everywhere but I didn't understand
why I was seeing pink in the stadiums, in the stores, in the supermarket... Why wasn't
I seeing pink in my own school or in my own social circle? I decided to do something about
it, and the first thing I did was to reflect about philanthropy, how do we imagine it,
how do we conceive it. A thought popped in my mind: a general businessman
giving a check, a huge-check, or a foundation making a project, a very big project. But
it really didn't seem as something you do out of the blue, so I decided to start in
my own school. I was studying in a private high school, traditional
old school, boring uniform, grey, and I wanted to make it pink. I was really nervous, obviously.
I asked for a meeting with my local school board, the headmaster of the school and the
principal, and I told them: let's make our uniforms pink. Let´s change a uniform that
has been around for ninety years and make it pink. The answer was yes. A ninety-year-old
institution actually understood that when it comes to social help the rigid could actually
become flexible. Imagine how excited I was. I was running around
enjoying myself, I had a great project moving forward; I had a big responsibility... responsibility??
How am I going to do it? Where am I going to start? I don't have any business experience,
I don't know how to balance a check account, as a matter of fact (Oh, my gosh!) I have
never written a check in my whole life... Well, whatever I need to learn, I was going
to learn it along the way and everything is going to be fine. So I was happy again, relaxed,
continuing my happiness dance and the happiness didn't last long because I noticed that
I had a second problem: I took a look at my wallet because I said I don't have any money
to finance this project, maybe I'm gonna find something here, right? 200 pesos, for you
that is like nine pounds. Clearly, not enough to finance your own project. I need to accept
I could have easily gone with my parents or with some friends of my family to offer the
money to start the project but I wasn't going to go and do that. That was exactly the label
I was trying to break. So I came up with a creative solution: I made a pre-sale. I sold
the sweatshirts to the students, collected the money, made a design, paid the guy that
could actually produce them and gave the sweatshirts back to the students and the result exceeded
my expectations. I thought probably a couple of girls in each
class were going to buy the sweatshirts but I never imagined that the majority of the
school was going to be wearing pink; boys were using pink with pride, even little kids
from kindergarten were using the sweatshirt, five-year-olds doing philanthropy and they
were doing it because it was something fun for them and something enjoyable, something
cool. It was perfect because the money I got from
that operation I divided in three parts. The first part I used to directly donate it to
breast cancer awareness. The second I used to professionalize my project, making it a
non-profit organization. It was a lot of hard work. I needed to hire lawyers and accountants
and consultants and it was tough and it still is every day but believe me, it's worth
it. The other part I used it to buy more sweatshirts and to try to expand to other schools.
I called many of them. Some of them they don't even answer, some of them told me come on
Gerardo, you're 16 years old, call us when you're a little bit older. They were labeling
me, but others actually accepted my project and it was growing and it was everywhere spreading,
really. I had suddenly become a social entrepreneur.
I almost felt like a rock star, well not really, a little bit. It was the perfect moment to
start the second phase of my project, the educational process. I am clearly not a doctor,
I'm not here to talk about medical fact, but what I do know is that with education and
Information we have the best tools to fight against breast cancer and to do it from its
roots. What we did is, we took doctors and breast
cancer survivor to give lectures to all of the schools and spread the word giving everyone
the tools to fight breast cancer and the results were magic. We're used to listening to our
mothers tell us Gerardo please brush your teeth, use a sweatshirt when you go out , especially
here in London, take a shower... now it was different, the kids were going back home with
their pink sweatshirt on, with the printed material we had given them with the knowledge
and with the energy to tell their moms to protect themselves, to be safe, to be aware.
It was something fantastic because the message given this way was way more profound and it
started spreading because these moms were telling their own moms and these moms were
telling their friends and sisters and everyone and now that we had the whole family involved
it was time to take advantage of it and we made a pink race, a marathon in which everyone
could participate not only students. And by doing something healthy they could actually
give to the cause and spread awareness. It was fantastic because it started opening
the eyes of other bigger institutions in Mexico, government agencies, even other foundations
started calling me wanting to know what I was doing differently, how I was getting so
many people involved in this project, especially younger people.
It was a perfect moment to realize that I couldn't do this alone, but I was probably
good at raising the funds, I was doing a good job in spreading awareness but I wasn't an
expert in elevating those funds. I didn't have the contacts or the experience so what
I did is I created alliances with other foundations specialized in this sector and I allocated
funds to them. It was great because the money we had raised
with so much effort could be used in a more efficient way helping more women. In social
help really your competitors aren't against you, they're with you. We're all going towards
the same goal, making a better world. It was suddenly time to graduate high-school.
I was lucky to find many girls in different schools that continue helping me manage the
project and I went on to search for new ventures. One of the main issues I was trying to address
my whole life is the involvement of men in women's causes and the solution came practically
by itself. A friend of mine from college came and told me: Gerardo I'm a racing car driver,
we could probably paste a couple of stamps in my car and the next race we could promote
the cause. It was a marvelous idea, when you think about it.
What I told him is: let's take it to the next level. And that's why we created Pink Life
Racing, the first professional car racing team in Latin America that races nonprofit
to benefit a social cause. The phenomena started again: men were seeing something different,
were seeing a pink car in the middle of the racing track. It was fantastic for them because
they got so excited that they became fans of the racing team and they ran back home
and told their wives and their daughters and their mothers not only about all the tools
we have against breast cancer but about how innovative and creative philanthropy could
get and how by thinking out of the box we could actually solve our problems, help our
community. It was fantastic. When they heard about all
of this in my university they asked me to give a talk just like this one. It went perfectly
fine but in the Q&A session they asked me something that really caused an impact on
me. They told me Gerardo, why did you start a Breast Cancer Foundation? Has someone in
your family died because of breast cancer? Do you know someone going through this right
now? Why were they asking me this? It was shocking to listen to this at the beginning
but then I understood there is a big label in philanthropy. People think that if you're
doing something for someone it's because something bad happened to you previously and
that is not always true, you don't need to wait for anything bad to happen to you. You
can start helping just because you want and actually the answer to that question is no,
my mom and my sister are right here accompanying me in the audience and I have nothing to do
with breast cancer. Hi mom, hi Mel! It was the perfect moment to reflect about
what gave me the strength and the drive to fight against breast cancer, a cause that
mostly affects women. I understood the answer was simple: it was love, the love I have for
my mom, for my sisters, for my grandma, for my teachers, for every woman that has caused
an impact on my life. They have inspired me to do this. I want to take a minute to thank
all of you women that make this world so fantastic. GRACIAS A TODAS, LAS QUIERO MUCHO.
So, I really have learned many, many things in this process. One of them is that the love
of a mother for her child is the strongest thing in the world and it can make anything
possible. That is true. Well I will only add to that that the love of a son for his mom
is as strong and it can break any labels. Also, it's important to make a point: I could
have easily gone the first day with the general businessman and asked for a check and that
would have been fine because I would have probably gathered the same amount or more
money that I have gathered for three years working but that wasn't the point. It was
not just an economical thing, it was about creating awareness, it was about making philanthropy
something cool something everyone enjoyed, unlabeling it, making accessible for everyone.
I don't want you to leave this talk here with me in the room I want you to go back home
and reflect about who you love and what labels are stopping you from doing something for
them and start taking action right now. In my case not only women afflicted by breast
cancer getting the economical help from my foundation were getting benefitted.
Every single student that wears the sweatshirt, every fan of the race car, everyone was winning
because they were becoming aware, they understood that in philanthropy we don't have any labels
and that's why I say that by helping others we help ourselves, by helping ourselves, we
really do help others. Thank you.