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Mary Balmaceda - Benin
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Mary Balmaceda, Peace Corps volunteer in Benin (1996-1998), trained cotton producers to form credit unions. She later joined the Calvert Foundation and is now Marketing Director for Unitus where she tries to reduce global poverty through microfinance.
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Mary Balmaceda was in the Peace Corps from 1996 to 1998 in Benin, where she trained cotton producers to form credit unions to provide micro loans to farmers. The Peace Corps was a life-changing experience that started when she was 13. She was in Sierra Leone visiting her father stationed there with the UN Development Program when she met an exciting Peace Corps volunteer on a motorcycle. She thought to herself, “I want to do that!”She began her career as a marketer through an internship with the National Geographic Channel during her MBA studies at Georgetown University. She was hired as a full-time consultant after she graduated. While at National Geographic, and later at the Discovery Channel, she felt drawn back to social action. Through a Net Impact contact she was offered a job as Marketing Manager at the Calvert Foundation – the non-profit arm of Calvert Mutual Funds. It was a great opportunity to combine her interest in socially responsible investing, her marketing experience and her love for social action.
She is now Director of Marketing and Communication for Unitus, trying to reduce global poverty through microfinance. Unitus works with local microfinance institutions, helping them to get access to business tools and capital to scale up so they can serve more people. Unitus’s portfolio of partners now reach close to three million people.
Her job is to manage Unitus' print and media communications, branding, reports, website, and e-marketing campaigns - essentially everything to attract attention to Unitus, the social entrepreneurs they fund, and the mission of fighting global poverty.
She does not consider herself a social entrepreneur, but an accelerator of social entrepreneurs. Her advice: “Be persistent! Success comes when you persist against the odds, keep your eye on your ultimate vision and your mind on the people you are helping.”
CLICK on the player above to listen to her interview.
