---
id: "virtual-communities:case/cluba-da-alice"
type: "GovLab case study"
title: "Clube da Alice"
url: "https://virtual-communities.thegovlab.org/case/cluba-da-alice"
date: "2021-02-23"
summary: "500,000 women are finding empowerment through entrepreneurship"
source: "The GovLab (virtual-communities.thegovlab.org)"
licence: "Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/)"
---

# Clube da Alice

**500,000 women are finding empowerment through entrepreneurship**

- Founding year: 2014
- Group size: 551,500 members (Private Group)
- Location: Curitiba, Brazil
- Part of: [The Power of Virtual Communities](https://virtual-communities.thegovlab.org/)

## Introduction

In spring 2017, a collaborative creation space called the Clube da Alice Lounge opened at the Mueller Shopping complex in Curitiba, a city of 1.8 million people in southern Brazil. The Lounge provides a physical space for nearly three dozen female entrepreneurs to showcase and sell their products to customers in the large mall. These entrepreneurs and small business owners are members of the Clube da Alice Facebook group, a broader networking community and marketplace for female entrepreneurs across the Curitiba region. The Lounge is just one of many resources the group has created in order to serve Curitiba’s local entrepreneur community.

Clube da Alice was founded in 2014 by Brazilian entrepreneur Mônica Balestieri Berlitz. According to the [Clube da Alice website](https://www.clubedaalice.com.br/newsletter/), Berlitz created the group “to promote female entrepreneurship through a free channel for publications of products / services, in addition to encouraging the debate of issues related to the universe of women.”[1] Today, the group has more than 500,000 members who make 3,000 posts daily, making Clube da Alice [one of the most prominent](https://www.assespropr.org.br/mulheres-na-t-i-conheca-a-historia-de-monica-berlitz-fundadora-do-clube-da-alice/) Facebook groups in Latin America.[2] The group provides these members, many of whom are independent creators with limited resources, with access to a large, trusted network of potential clients and partners.

## How it All Started

In 2014, Berlitz was looking for a way to publicize a fashion magazine called Palpite da Alice (“Alice’s Guess”), of which she was the editor. Berlitz began to promote the publication on Facebook, and was met with an outpouring of support and positive feedback from other members of the female online entrepreneur community. This experience [gave Berlitz the idea](https://www.assespropr.org.br/mulheres-na-t-i-conheca-a-historia-de-monica-berlitz-fundadora-do-clube-da-alice/) “to create a safe environment for women to advertise their businesses” as well as “facilities and transparency for those who wanted to purchase their products.”[3]

Berlitz [named the new community](https://revistaviver.com.br/?p=27009) Clube da Alice in homage to Lewis Caroll’s book, Alice in Wonderland. As Berlitz told us in a recent interview, the group is meant for women who, like the girl who fell through the looking glass, are friendly, ethical, and respectful of differences, yet also questioning, critical, and curious.

## Leadership

![Clube Da Alice Berlitz Headshot](https://thegovlab-files.nyc3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/thegovlab-directus9/uploads/b0eca7bf-bdc7-4c20-a172-207df23b4869.jpg)

*Figure 1: Mônica Berlitz created Clube da Alice in 2014 to provide female entrepreneurs with a safe environment to showcase their products and build connections. Photo courtesy of Mônica Berlitz.*

Berlitz, who is Clube da Alice’s sole [administrator (admin)](https://www.facebook.com/help/901690736606156), is supported by a team of approximately a dozen [moderators](https://www.facebook.com/help/901690736606156). Berlitz looks for group members who exhibit empathy for others and who she feels are engaged in the community, understand it well, and know how to use the tools of the Facebook platform. Berlitz says that at one time, the group had a professional moderation team on payroll, but she found that volunteers were more effective moderators because they truly cared about the community and its values. The group raises money through profits from products that use the Club’s brand, sponsorships with other brands, paid events, and paid memberships. Those who sign up for a paid club [membership](http://carteirinha.clubedaalice.com.br/) can access exclusive events and discounts on products and services with partnering businesses around Curitiba.

Governance is extensive. Moderators enforce more than [50 rules](https://www.clubedaalice.com.br/regras-do-clube-da-alice/), many of which derive from Brazilian law, which are designed to create a safe, ethical, and legal marketplace for women to sell their products within the Facebook group. The group developed many of these rules in coordination with regulatory authorities in response to particular issues. For instance, Berlitz says that some group members wanted to sell homemade cheeses, which can be illegal and unsafe, so they created a rule that any cheese products sold on the group must be certified by a local regulatory authority.

Clube da Alice also worked with the Brazilian agency that oversees trademarks and intellectual property to ensure that posts follow national intellectual property laws. Other rules outlaw posts that promote multi-level marketing (“pyramid schemes”), sweepstakes and raffles, religious posts, sharing “controversial” publications, and fake profiles. These rules are a result of the unique space that the Clube da Alice Facebook group occupies as both an online community and a marketplace for the sale of digital and physical products.

## Participation

Clube da Alice is composed primarily of female business owners and professionals in the Curitiba metropolitan area. Berlitz says that “Alices,” as members of the group are colloquially known, fall into three categories:

1. Entrepreneurs - women who advertise their businesses and products
2. Consumers - women who come to the group to buy goods and services
3. Observers - women who are in the group for entertainment or to conduct market research but do not actively participate.

Women join because the group provides them a platform to make professional and personal connections with other participating community members and to showcase their products in a virtual space. Berlitz says that women feel more comfortable conducting business within the closed community than they would buying or selling on another online platform. The group provides members with access to this large platform as well as information about how to price their products and sustainably operate their businesses.

Clube da Alice is a “secret” group, meaning that new members must be invited to join by a current member. Any invitee who identifies as female is eligible to join. New members may find out about the group through several channels outside Facebook, including a [newsletter](https://www.clubedaalice.com.br/newsletter/), [blog](https://www.clubedaalice.com.br/blog/), and [Instagram page](https://www.instagram.com/clubedaalice/?hl=en).

## Action

Clube da Alice is primarily an online network to build business connections and sell goods and services, from beauty and fashion services to handicrafts to food. The community includes everything from doctors offering consultations to vendors selling seasonal produce. A [2020 article](https://www.brazilianjournals.com/index.php/BRJD/article/view/12063/10083) published by the Brazilian Journal of Development describes Clube da Alice as a “large collaborative network” to which entrepreneurs come to sell products and consumers come in order to learn about new sellers and to exchange information, for instance, about the quality of products.[4] Enabling local commerce through online transactions is particularly important during the COVID-19 pandemic when in-person commerce has stalled. Berlitz says participation has substantially increased since the pandemic began.

Members also form personal connections. Berlitz tells of a member who learned that she had developed breast cancer at a young age. When her doctor told her that getting more exercise would improve the effectiveness of her chemotherapy treatment, the young woman turned to Clube da Alice to find other people to accompany her on daily walks. More than 200 women joined up. Berlitz says that with the community’s support, this member has not only beaten breast cancer but gone on to run marathons.

To build this sense of community, the leadership team engages with members both on the secret group and the public [Facebook page](https://www.facebook.com/clubedaaliceoficial/). Berlitz often hosts livestreams with guests who speak about a range of topics, from makeup tutorials, to the experience of Black women in the tech entrepreneur community, to the role of women in politics.

## Outcome and Impact

According to Berlitz, the group’s greatest impact is its ability to facilitate business connections that help female entrepreneurs to succeed. For instance, Berlitz says that one young woman began posting about the traditional Brazillian desserts that she was baking at home. The desserts were a hit, and the woman was able to expand her small business from an at-home operation to three pastry shops that employs 30 people. “It wasn’t Clube da Alice that did this, but rather the connections she formed within the group,” Berltiz told us.

Berlitz says that these stories of empowerment underscore the growing role of women in the Brazilian labor market, which goes far beyond simply making money. “We think about entrepreneurship only while generating income, but it can also help women to see themselves differently within the family,” [she told](https://www.jornale.com.br/post/2020/06/27/Clube-da-Alice-passa-a-fazer-parte-do-Shopping-Crystal) the Curitiba-based news site Jornale. She says the economic independence that women build through entrepreneurship can also translate to greater autonomy in their roles as providers for their family.[5]

## Challenges

As a large group, moderating the huge volume of posts and comments can be a challenge. Berlitz says that the Facebook algorithm can be inconsistent and will sometimes incorrectly flag posts as violating the platforms rules. The original poster then wrongfully accuses the moderation team of removing their post. Berlitz says there has been an uptick in these sorts of contentious interactions since the pandemic began, since the group is much more active in the absence of in-person opportunities to sell products.

When asked about operating Clube da Alice on a private platform, Berlitz did not raise any major concerns. Rather, she says that the group has to respect Facebook’s rules and that she spends a lot of time working with the moderators to make sure they understand the platform’s rules and how to use its tools to enforce them.

Berlitz does say that Facebook’s moderation tools could be improved. For instance, it can be difficult for moderators to make announcements since their post may not show up on all members’ feeds. She would like to see improvements in how moderators’ announcements and posts are distributed to group members.

## Future Prospects

Berlitz’s goal for the future is to reach and impact as many women as possible. Clube da Alice [is participating](https://www.facebook.com/community/2020communitydirectory/) in the 2020 [Community Accelerator](https://www.facebook.com/community/2020communitydirectory/), a Facebook-led program that provides training, mentorship, and funding to help online communities grow. She hopes to expand the group beyond the Curitiba region to other cities in Brazil.

The group is also continuing to expand the array of services it offers to members. Clube da Alice is working with the Curitiba city government to connect women with free education programs about finance and technology for business. In addition to the Clube da Alice Lounge, the group [is developing](https://www.jornale.com.br/post/2020/06/27/Clube-da-Alice-passa-a-fazer-parte-do-Shopping-Crystal) a “collaborative creation space” at the Shopping Crystal mall in Curitiba. The 115 m² retail space will consist of two storefronts, one of which will include a recording studio, which is intended as resources for members to use to create and sell their products. In another example, in 2020 the group worked with the [Tipay app](https://tipay.app/) (a Brazil-based mobile payment platform) to launch [AlicePay](http://www.clubedaalice.com.br/alicepay/#home), a mobile application for processing digital payments. In both these cases, Clube da Alice worked with an outside company to develop products tailored to group members while also strengthening the Clube da Alice brand.

## Lessons learned

- **Intimacy by design -** A sense of community is what sets Clube da Alice apart from other run-of-the-mill online marketplaces and sell-and-swap shops. *Alice in Wonderland*\-themed imagery, such as white rabbits and skeleton keys, features prominently on the group’s website, giving the “club” a fantasy-inspired feeling of secrecy and intimacy. Berlitz sees the sense of belonging as key to fostering positive interactions between members: “Often when people react aggressively in the group, it's because they don't feel like they belong, in some way, to what is being created,” she says. “But once people feel like they belong to a community, they work to nurture connections with one another.”
- **Rules grounded in experience -** Clube da Alice’s collection of rules is extensive and extremely specific. Since the group developed many of the rules with legal or professional authorities on specific issues, the rules have an aura of legitimacy. The consistent and effective enforcement of the rules is key to maintaining the safe and transparent marketplace that the group’s vendors and sellers rely upon.

## End notes

1. Quote translated by Google
2. As of October 23, 2020
3. Quote translated by Google and edited for clarity
4. Translated by Google
5. Translated by Google and edited for clarity.