Nonprofit has taken off
To celebrate the first anniversary of Nonprofit, the director of xarxanet.org shares with us the motivations behind the project and his expectations for the future.
Oriol Toro
Journalist and storyteller. Director of Nonprofit and Xarxanet.org. Narrator at Vivim del Cuentu. He regularly collaborates with Núvol.com and with the radio programme "Valors a l'Alça" at Mataró Radio.
Just one year ago we started Nonprofit; this portal materialised after a couple of years with our minds spinning around the idea. One of the main motivations behind conceptualising it was basically egotism. We wanted to take in as much knowledge on the international nonprofit sector as possible. How do nonprofit organisations work in other countries? How is volunteering managed beyond our borders? How are campaigns organised abroad?
It may sound unworthy to express it in these terms, but our second motivation was pride; the pride of knowing that the Catalan nonprofit sector is one to look up to, that we have a volunteering model that can be exported and that the Catalan society has made volunteering and its nonprofit organisations its main raison d’être.
So, with egotism and pride we created Nonprofit, to give ourselves and everyone else all the expertise, initiatives and lessons, those we share and also those that are alien to the nonprofit sector.
This said, it hasn’t been easy. Starting a portal that aims at becoming international from scratch is a long endeavour. And despite all the visits to the portal, we are not yet on the same playing field as the greatest in the sector. Yes, we can say we’ve generated more than 150 contents with news, interviews, reports and editorial articles, that we have almost 600 followers on the social media and that our newsletter is sent out to more than 700 subscribers. The experience has allowed us to forge alliances with nonprofit organisations and experts from around fifteen countries. We have learnt from them, while they have learnt from us. This exchange (and networking in general) is essential in this day and age to develop any activity or project.
Now we have a little dream at the back of our minds. Getting this portal to grow, as well as its parent site (xarxanet.org) so that it can become a reference in the nonprofit sector at an international level. It’s an exciting task and we know it will take time before it bears any fruit, but still, we also know we won’t stop feeding it so we can achieve our goals and move forward in our desire to provide service.
So, welcome to Nonprofit; we are here to stay. Join us to find out more!
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