Founded in 2012, ConPRmetidos is a female-led non-profit that is proving that Puerto Ricans can build a global model of community-driven success. By harnessing the talent and energy of individuals, organizations and the private sector, in Puerto Rico and abroad, ConPRmetidos consistently supports the most impactful grassroots organizations while breaking new ground with original projects aimed squarely at critical socio-economic challenges facing our island.
In 2012, a group of young Puerto Ricans, concerned with the island’s mounting challenges, realized that the government was simply not able to resolve them all. They, as citizens, would need to play a more active role and make their place as part of the solution.
ConPRmetidos was born as a movement that engaged Puerto Rico’s dynamic diaspora and global allies in activating their commitment to the island’s economic development via direct connections to and mentoring of Puerto Rican businesses and entrepreneurs.
In 2017, in the aftermath of hurricanes Irma and Maria, the capacity of ConPRmetidos’ networking over the previous five years became clear: over $3 million was quickly fundraised to support immediate relief and long-term recovery for communities and businesses devastated by these storms.
As thousands of volunteers, millions in donations, and billions in federal funding commitments began to rain down on Puerto Rico, ConPRmetidos surveyed the landscape and recognized two foundational factors that have helped guide its decisions and actions since:
1. Puerto Rico is much more than the San Juan metropolitan area. For Puerto Rico to truly recover, investments in resiliency and capacity must be spread out island-wide.
2. True resiliency and sustainable capacity cannot progress if only addressed in the aftermath of tragic storms. Long term planning and investments in the non-profit sector are needed so that the breadth of Puerto Rico’s challenges and opportunities can be better identified and targeted.
ConPRmetidos’ role had begun to evolve, starting with the 2018 launch of the Collaborative Impact Grants (CIG) program, which established that ConPRmetidos’ support of grassroots non-profits would not be limited to financial aid only. The CIG framework provides a mix of funding, technical support, and/or mentoring to community-based organizations to help them launch and manage economic and educational development projects over longer horizons.
Via CIG, ConPRmetidos has committed more than $3.5 million in over 50 organizations active in every municipality across the island, delivering over $24 million in economic impact, a multiplier effect of 8x. Some of the organizations that have received direct, recurring support from ConPRmetidos are PROCAFE, Mumas, Vieques Conservation and Historical Trust, and PAYE, among many others.
In 2020 ConPRmetidos returned its attention to one of its founding purposes: engaging Puerto Ricans abroad towards the island’s economic development. Various sectors — such as finance, pharma, and tech — were showing signs of sustained growth but fifteen years of economic recession had driven almost 15% percent of the island’s population to emigrate to the U.S. The skilled talent to fill available jobs was no longer in Puerto Rico.
ConPRmetidos’ response was to launch El Comeback in 2021, a wholly original program aimed at the retention and attraction of the professional talent Puerto Rico needs in order to power the sectors that will drive growth. Over 2,000 experienced professionals living abroad, most working in these target sectors, have registered with El Comeback, generating over 940 candidate referrals to 40 Puerto Rican companies to date.
As 2022 comes to an end, ConPRmetidos is doubling down on what has worked, increasing its CIG funding commitments and adding capacity to better manage the needs of our grantees, and leveraging a grant from the Economic Development Agency to take El Comeback to the next level and supercharge the pipeline of talent choosing to stay in or return to Puerto Rico and help drive its development forward.
The story of ConPRmetidos is one of diligence in the face of challenges, innovation as the path towards solution. What began as friends critiquing the lack of progress they believed was needed, has evolved in ten short years into one of Puerto Rico’s most active and impactful providers of resources and material change.
