Dear Esteemed Businessperson:

The Global Business Brigade of San Diego State University thanks you
graciously for taking the time to consider extending your financial
support to our charitable cause.

As a brigade of committed and resourceful students with a passion for

helping the less fortunate, this summer break we will be traveling to a
remote farm in Panama that is struggling to stay in business. In the
months prior to our departure, we will meet weekly on campus to
analyze data and formulate a business plan to implement once in
Panama. We will work vigorously to fundraise as much as possible to
help ease the financial burden on each student. Each “brigader” must
pay $850 for the program and an addition $450-$550 for airfare. The
program fee includes lodging, ground transportation, food, security,
Global Brigades staff assistance, project sustainability, and $100
allocated to a venture capital fund. The venture capital fund is
comprised of $100 from each brigader and will be invested in a durable
investment for the farm that we will choose in order to ensure project
sustainability.

We will be in Panama Summer Term 2011. The first few days in

Panama will be spent receiving training from Global Brigades staff on
how to effectively teach the native people basic accounting and book
keeping skills along with other vital skills necessary to prosper in the
Panamanian economy. We will be spending 100% of our time with the
farming community that we have been assigned; working alongside
them and learning from them as we teach them about business.

If your business agrees to grant us the financial support we need, we

will commit to providing your business with a post-brigade update, as
well as a spot for your business’s logo on the back of our shirts, our
website, and at the end of our video to be released on Facebook.com.
Please contact President Brooke Gallagher for our 501(c)(3) tax ID
number to deduct from your taxes.

Attached is a brief overview of our project which we will be working on

while in Panama. The Global Business Brigade of San Diego State
University thanks you in advance for your help and thoughtfulness.

Best regards,

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____________________________________________
________________________________________

Brooke Gallagher, President Monica Edelman, Vice

President
(760) 803-6508 (909) 528-0873
sdsugbb@globalbrigades.org
monica.edelman.sdsu@gmail.com

Contents
Contents ..................................................................................................

...................................... 2

Why

Panama? .................................................................................................

............................ 3

Development

Challenges ..............................................................................................

......... 3

Our Role in

Panama....................................................................................................

.............. 4

Project

Details .....................................................................................................

....................... 5

Budget.....................................................................................................

........................................ 7

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Budget

Details......................................................................................................

........................ 7

Funding

Sources ...................................................................................................

..................... 8

Timeline...................................................................................................

...................................... 8

Anticipated

Sponsorship.............................................................................................

........... 8

Our

Team........................................................................................................

............................... 9

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Panama Key Facts
Panama is located in Central America, bordering both the Caribbean Sea and
the North Pacific Ocean, between Colombia and Costa Rica.

Population 3,641,422 (November 2010 est.)

78,200 sq km; Slightly smaller than
Size South Carolina
GDP per capita $6,793 (2010 est.)
Minimum Wage $285 per month
Population below poverty
line 37%
Unemployment rate 8.80%
Household income or
consumption ● lowest 10%: 0.8%
by percentage share ● highest 10%: 41.4% (2006)

Development Challenges
Panama’s skyscrapers, vibrant banking and finance sector, and major ports
give the impression of a country well able to meet the needs of its citizens.
However, serious underdevelopment and security issues threaten Panama’s
democratic institutions and political stability. With poverty levels high (37%)
and deep-rooted, the economic and social well-being of many Panamanians,
particularly those in the lower middle class, will worsen without sustained
economic growth, equitable economic and social opportunities, and
sustainable development.

Panama’s key development challenges include:

i. Fighting systemic corruption;
ii. Modernizing the judicial system to foster the rule of law and equitable
access to justice;
iii. Consolidating its democracy;
iv. Maintaining the smooth administration of the economically vital
Panama Canal and conserving the watershed that feeds it;
v. Fostering the enabling environment necessary to increase trade and
rural competitiveness while redressing widespread income inequality.

Our Role in Panama

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 Our project focuses on moving the farm of the Santa Cruz community
from consumption to profit and to encourage a diversified nutrition within the
community. Today, the farm of 3.7 acres currently only feeds the farmers and
their families with corn, rice, oranges, plantains, coffee, and cassava. The
farm has tilapia pools, a pigsty, and a boilers coop. With infrastructure in
place, it is our job to use SWOT analysis to observe the opportunities
available and make their business profitable by correctly implementing a
dynamic business plan to foster a flourishing farm. Our goal is to transform
their business from a “community farm” to a business that produces and
transports thousands of tons of pounds of food for the entire Panamanian
population. We can make this possible with small steps in the right direction.
The following dictates our plan for our first brigade to the region:
We will start by analyzing microeconomics and look at their production
possibilities frontier to see which product they should specialize in to gain the
largest profit. This PPF will rely on our research of things such as:
competition, efficiency, and input costs (such as labor and capital). Once we
have finalized a commodity for the farm to specialize in, we will then look at
the different ways in which to promote the sale and production of such
good(s) through business techniques. We will spend time teaching them the
importance of book keeping and accounting to better understand how their
business works; such that they will be able to see trends in their data and be
able to diversify their farm based on those trends. After teaching them the
foundation of business, book keeping, we will focus our efforts on the
production of the goods and lowering input costs, such as labor costs. In
doing so, we will analyze ways the farm can become more efficient in
production and teach the community to foster this knowledge to their
advantage using cost-analysis equations (i.e. If the majority of the time is
spent husking corn, it may be more profitable in the long run to invest in a
mechanical corn-husker to decrease labor costs and increase efficiency).
After our focus on the production of goods, we will then focus on the sale of
goods, mainly marketing. We will observe marketing attempts of the region
to view what has not worked and more importantly, what has worked for
similar businesses. We see this as important to increase the sale of goods to
create a brand, or product identity.

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Objectives
Our main objective is to conceive and implement a sustainable farm industry
at Santa Cruz by empowering farmers to manage businesses through
education and collaboration, establishing connections to other farm industries
and mentoring the farmers to setup the infrastructure required to promote
farming. We hope to return to the same area for a period of 2 – 3 years, to
complete our short term and long term goals for the project.

Short Term (1 year)

● Develop a Business Plan that is accepted by all stakeholders
● Develop a clear outline for financial sustainability
● Establish infrastructure and resource requirements that would need to
be fulfilled
● Connect with the local farm industry
● Create a system to monitor progress and collect feedback

Long Term (2-3 years)

● Establish the infrastructure needed to ensure prosperous farming
● Create a marketing plan and marketing materials; including an online
presence and local publicity
● Provide more job opportunities for the local community
● Collaborate with farmers to maintain productivity
● Develop new project ideas to expand the activities and scope of the
farm as a center
● Mitigate potential eco-system risks
● Monitor the market for opportunities to expand

Timeline
February- May 20th
Prior to the brigade, we will:
i. Finalize trip logistics
ii. Fundraise for trip and program costs
iii. Develop an initial Marketing Plan
iv. Research the farming industry in Panama and select possible partners
v. Develop a model for financial sustainability based on existing farms

We aim to complete these tasks through collaboration and communication

with the farmers and the partner organization (Patronato de Nutrición)
facilitated by Global Business Brigade liaisons in Panama.

Summer Term
During the brigade, we will:
i. Survey the community and surrounding areas for partners in the farm
industry
ii. Finalize and implement the local aspect of our marketing plan
iii. Develop a system to monitor progress
iv. Establish stakeholder commitments and expectations
v. Reinforce the operations, finance, and marketing concepts covered in the
workshops
vi. Determine if there is a need for another visit
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vii. Finalize a plan of action for the next phase of the project

Post Summer Term

After the brigade, we will:
i. Implement the online and United States portions of the Marketing plan
ii. Refine and finalize a model for financial sustainability relevant to the farm
and the community
iii. Maintain communication and monitor progress
iv. Document findings and generate reports
v. Establish year to year metrics for success for our team
vi. Establish long term partnerships with sponsors

Sustainability
Project Sustainability
● Develop a system to monitor progress and collect feedback remotely:
This will provide us with a framework for evaluation and allow us to
keep a check on the timeline, foresee and mitigate problems facing the
project and plan future trips efficiently.
● Implement bi – weekly visits by a representative of our partner
organization in Panama to get first – hand reports
● Visit the same region at least once a year for the next 2 – 4 years (or
as required)
● Document all project processes, research, deliverables and lessons
learned

Brigade Sustainability
● Recruit and mentor underclassmen to develop future leadership
● Roll – over funds left over for future projects
● Collect and archive all project materials and documentation to ensure
institutional memory

Budget
Global Business Brigades has a base in Panama, with the infrastructure in
place to support all program logistics. We will be investing $1,000 to progress
the groundwork for development. Future trips may require more capital to be

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raised in order to support the project activities in Panama and expedite
development.

Budget Details
Cost per
Expense Person Total Expense
Airfare $550 $5,500
Lodging $400 $4,000
Food $140 $1,400
Transportation $10 $100
Program Fee $200 $2,000
Venture Capital $100 $1,000
Incidentals $50 $500
Total $1,450 $14,500

Funding Sources
As this will be our premier year going to Panama, we aim to raise most of our
funds through sponsorship from local businesses and large corporations. We
shall also seek funds on-campus from our separate colleges and through fund
raising activities.

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Timeline
● February 23 – March 23rd : Contact all external sponsors
● March 1st – May 11th : All school sources contacted and solicited
● February 19th – May 11th : Major campus fund raising activities
● May 11th – May 22nd : Follow up with external sponsors, secure
donations
● May 22nd : Deadline for fund raising, personal contributions to fulfill
remainder

Anticipated Sponsorship
Source Funding
School Resources $500
Fundraisers $3,500
Businesses/ External Sponsors $7,000
Family/ Friends $3,000
Personal Contributions $500

Our Team
Brian Leininger: Junior, International Business

Brian Manderscheid: Cal Poly, SLO Alumni, Business Administration

Brooke Gallagher: Senior, Economics

Claudio Cabrera: Junior, Economics

Grant Gallagher: Cal Poly, SLO Alumni, Physics and Business Administration

Jason Burkett: Senior, Economics and Navy affiliate

Jessica Gonzalez: Junior, International Business

Monica Edelman: Sophomore, International Business

Sergio Perez: Junior, Economics

Shay Corley: Masters, Speech Pathology