Melina Santiago: the alumna who’s leading LALA to a more data-driven culture
Born in Mendoza (Argentina), the 18 y/o Melina Santiago is the new Alumni Coordinator for Salesforce at LALA. She studies Social Entrepreneurship at Lynn University in the United States and found out about LALA in 2020 when her university sent her a list of internships. LALA caught her attention- first, because it was the only Latin American institution and, second, because of LALA’s focus on education. “Education is the basis of everything,” states Melina. Therefore, she decided to apply to be a Development research intern and was selected in September 2020.
At 7, Melina and her family had to leave Argentina to move to Cali (Colombia) due to her father’s job. During high school, Melina took part in different volunteer groups but never considered social impact as a career path. “It was just a hobby for me,” she affirmed. Since she was a child, Melina has been passionate about sports and aimed to pursue a major directly related to this sphere. However, when looking into various universities, she discovered a Social Entrepreneurship major at her current college and became fascinated. Since then, she has found a way to connect one of her passions- sports- with the desire to make an impact in her community and the world: “I believe that sports can be a tool to broadcast and boost education of quality around youth.”
At LALA, Melina executed different projects, but she is especially proud of the implementation of Salesforce. Before, “all contacts were on different spreadsheets, and the information was hard to find,” Melina comments. Even though Salesforce was a “great development opportunity,” Melina felt insecure, given that she had no experience using the platform. “I never got along with technology. During high school, I almost failed computer science”. Luckily, this didn’t stop Melina, who started to watch tutorials online, and, step by step, started to understand Salesforce. Melina is now proud to announce LALA’s Salesforce section regarding donors and development is ready, and in the next months, she’ll be focusing on organizing the alumni information division.
On the other hand, Melina remarks that one of her favorite aspects of the internship is that her projects at LALA and her college class can complement each other. For example, after reading about win-win situations and conflict resolutions, she could apply that knowledge to a crowdfunding campaign at LALA last December. In addition, for an assignment where she had to design a curriculum on education and sports, she used LALA’s pedagogical foundations as the basis of the project.
After seven months of working in the organization, Melina states: “I want LALA to grow as much as possible. The organization plants a seed in each one of us, who then will plant that same seed in others”.
Her next big project is to prepare more staff members on Salesforce to “build a chain” where one teaches others, so when she is no longer working at LALA, everything can function. LALA is extremely excited about this new step in the development of our organization and to be part of Melina’s growth.
