By Graciela Hopstein and Betina Sarue
The Philanthropy Network for Social Justice started the Giving for Change Program (GFC) in 2021 with support from Dutch cooperation. The GFC is led by an international consortium made up of four organizations that will be responsible for overall coordination: Global Fund for Community Foundations (GFCF), African Philanthropy Network (APN); Kenya Community Development Foundation (KCDF) and Wilde Ganzen (WG). The Program will last five years and have a total budget of 24 million euros, and was selected by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs within the scope of the Power of Voices notice. It will be developed in eight countries in the Global South: Brazil, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique, Palestine and Uganda. Brazil's participation in the context of this Program is certainly significant in the proposal to strengthen South-South cooperation.
The Program's main objective is to promote community philanthropy and social justice as a strategy to achieve community-led development, strengthening the demand for rights. This aims to challenge the notion that development is something that is “made for communities” by external actors. In this sense, evidence will be built around new thoughts, approaches and leadership that support the development of community philanthropy and social justice.
The Program is structured into three areas of action:
1. Supporting the power of local communities from civil society actors, understanding community philanthropy as a way to express their opinions, claim rights and express solidarity and dissent;
2. Influence on national actors, whether governments, philanthropists, civil society organizations or individual donors, in order to strengthen the community philanthropy agenda aimed at promoting human rights;
3. Influence on international actors, influencing international cooperation for development, and guiding the appreciation of community philanthropy and local appropriation of development processes.
“In a global context of shrinking civic space, Giving for Change will encourage civil society organizations, including especially human rights organizations, to value and embrace the mobilization of local resources as a way to strengthen their position, with strong roots in communities and local networks.”, says Jenny Hodgson, executive director of GFCF, one of the institutions that are part of the consortium.
With actions aimed at strengthening community philanthropy and socio-environmental justice, the program developed in the context of the Network will aim to strengthen these agendas together with various partners at local, regional and international levels, seeking to promote debates and develop initiatives on the culture of donation together with the actors involved.
The planned activities include both the development of support and capacity-building programs aimed at organizations that work in the field of community philanthropy and socio-environmental justice that mobilize resources from diverse sources, involving communities and their articulation practices with local actors . The GFC envisages the development of coordinated actions (between the different countries involved) of advocacy aimed at national philanthropic ecosystems, in the field of human rights and socio-environmental justice, and in the context of international organizations, both international agencies and in the field of philanthropy. Certainly, the production of knowledge, the exchange of experiences and partnerships with strategic actors working in the field will be the key elements that will not only guide the actions, but that will guarantee the success of the Program.
We believe that the GFC will be a great opportunity to strengthen community and social justice philanthropy, valuing development practices (grantmaking), understood as a strategy to support civil society, focusing on political minorities who work in the field of rights, and thus strengthen Brazilian democracy.
Betina Sarue is a program advisor at the Philanthropy Network for Social Justice
