La Nación Newspaper and the Red Solidaria

La Nación was one of Argentina’s oldest and most prestigious. Red Solidaria (Solidarity Network) was a volunteer organization founded in 1995 that had successfully used mass media to raise funds for several institutions and individuals who needed high-cost medical treatments abroad. The case of the alliance between La Nación and Red Solidaria describes the relationship of a news media company, traditionally focused on public welfare and customer service, and a volunteer organization, Red Solidaria, that had engineered new community awareness mechanisms to respond to urgent family or individual needs.

The founder of Red Solidaria gradually built ties with various sectors at La Nación to develop several news “products”, which eventually led to a joint venture: the solidarity ads, published daily on the back of the newspaper´s classified ads section. The new ads were used by NGOs to request donations and by individuals who offered volunteer work.

This case provides an opportunity to analyze the role of organizational leadership in alliance building, the use of specific corporate resources for social responsibility projects, and the benefits afforded by partnerships between business companies and NGOs. It may be used in courses that explore the relationship between companies and communities, or in corporate strategy courses dealing with company positioning strategies, or strategic marketing courses that discuss solidarity promotion attributes that may be added to a news media product such as a newspaper.