During its 2007 strategic planning process, Taller Salud decided it had to develop innovative income generating strategies.  The local economy had had a down turn and many traditional funders were limiting donations or changing their guidelines.

See, despite its longevity, Taller Salud did not have a formal fundraising program.  Fundraising had always been a task shared by all staff, who every year dedicated time from their personal or professional responsibilities in order to guarantee agency solvency. 

In the new strategic plan, the Board of Directors and staff designed a fiscal sustainability plan based on concepts of social enterprise.  This plan included the pursuit of new programmatic proposals, the sale of professional services and a fundraising campaign in honor of our 30th anniversary.  In April 2008, Taller Salud joined the Americorps*Vista program.  Americorps*Vista member, Maxima Iban, helped us increase our collaborations with local community organizations and representatives, establish new alliances and strengthen old relationships.  Through these new outreach efforts, we secured monetary and in kind services to design, create and implement a professional education workshops based on Taller Salud's 30 years of health and prevention experience.  And so, Actualizate! was born.

In May 2009, Actualizate! offered its first continuing education workshop for education and health professionals.  The workshop's title was "Male Survivors of Sexual Assault," it was co-sponsored by the Social Workers'Association and 17 professionals participated in it.  Since then, over 50 profesionals, including doctors, psichologists, educators, social workers, outreach workers, students and clergy, among many more, have attended Actualizate! workshops.  Actualizate's workshops are now approved for continuing education credits for psychologists, nurses, counselors, health educators, health administrators, and nutritionists, in addition to social workers.  During this time, over $2,000 have been generated by Actualizate! These funds have been re-invested into Taller Salud's health education programs on STD, HIV, pregnancy and child abuse prevention throughout the northeast coast of Puerto Rico.

Collaboration with Americorps*Vista has allowed Taller Salud to develop a structured sustainability program combining fundraising, social enterprises and community alliances.  Our approach is long term and it seeks stability and increased independence from external proposal cycles in order to maintain the security of our staff and programs.  So far, it has been successful and we are only seeing the beginning of Actualizate!