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By Larissa Ferreira
FunBEA (Brazilian Environmental Education Fund), in 2022, launched the donation campaign “How much is it worth?”, with the intention of supporting three socio-environmental collectives that work with community-based actions, environmental education, culture and art on the Coast North of São Paulo.
Despite challenges in mobilizing resources for the campaign, with the support of Rede Comuá and the Global Found for Community Foundation (GFCF), FunBEA can transfer financial resources to the three collectives, namely Coletivo Caiçara, the Coletivo Educador de Bertioga and Coletivo Escambau Cultura.
In addition to the financial pillar, FunBEA has political and educational pillars in its activities, from the perspective of a popular, critical and transformative Environmental Education (EE). And how was the relationship built with the collective partners in the campaign? How can this construction contribute to the field of community philanthropy?
These were some of the questions that motivated the research “Community philanthropy and Environmental Education: analysis of the circle of donors on the North Coast of SP”, which was part of the first edition of Rede Comuá’s Saberes Program. Some of the findings are shared below.
The main strategy to maintain the relationship with the collectives partnering in the campaign was to hold monthly virtual meetings with people representing the collectives, throughout the year 2022, both in the months of planning and structuring the campaign and in the months in which the campaign was released to the public.
The meetings focused on training processes in the themes of environmental education and resource mobilization, in addition to deepening discussions about the identity of each collective and discussing where they intended to allocate the donated resources, so that FunBEA and the collectives could agree on this collaborative way.
As Doan (2019) points out, in many perceptions about the concept of community philanthropy, the idea that the community needs to have leadership and control over the resources that are donated and invested in its territories is reinforced.
In the case of the relationship with FunBEA, the collectives stated that they had autonomy to decide how to invest the donated resources and that they had space for proposals and sharing. “The welcoming of FunBEA, of our difficulties, the respect for the collective's decision-making, nothing was forced at any moment, I think they left it very free, they gave a great deal of autonomy, even the changes of route along the way” (Representative from Coletivo Caiçara).
The relationship strategies with the collectives, in addition to promoting autonomy in the use of resources, encouraged internal improvements, maturity, visibility and drew attention to the continued search for other types of financing. As well as strengthening the identity of collectives, respecting the characteristics of each one.
For Coletivo Escambau Cultura, the strengthening came in the sense of maturing a process that the collective had already started, which was to better understand its identity, and that being part of the campaign was important to say more clearly “who we are ”. Leila, representative of Escambau, assesses that the collective in this process became more robust and that when thinking about future planning, the collective broadened its perspective on the possibilities of mobilizing resources.
Another issue that brings an organization closer to acting to strengthen the field of community philanthropy is its commitment to being attentive to the fundamental norms and values of the field, which include trust, reciprocity, responsibility, solidarity and transparency (DOAN, 2019). The three collectives shared that they realized, throughout their relationship with FunBEA and among themselves, the presence of these values.
“I feel completely confident in FunBEA, in terms of the collective, of being able to be a representative of the collective, because the responsibility is so great, it was brought month after month, a sum of values, which translates into trust and this continues to firm up until we reach that trust that we have today.” – Claudia from Coletivo Educador de Bertioga.
There were also challenges that refer to the field of community philanthropy, such as changing the perspective of who the donor is, and it is also a challenge to understand that those who donate are not just people/companies with high purchasing power and that the donation is not only in terms of financial resources, but also the communities themselves in their daily activities donate different resources, talents, skills, that is, in addition to financial capital, social capital.
Another challenge in this sense was identified in relation to collectives contributing their own resources and talents, since there is an overload of work for the people who are part of the collectives, as they all act voluntarily and often, due to lack of time and excess of demands, they ended up having difficulty getting more involved with the campaign and bringing together other people in the collective.
However, when evaluating the relationship with the campaign's partner collectives as a whole, it can be said that FunBEA was successful in relation to its expectations of offering support to the collectives based on its political, educational and financial pillars of action. This experience points out that providing the democratization of access to resources by non-formalized groups is capable of contributing to local actions that are effective for the socio-environmental transformation of territories.
Do you want to know more about the findings of international donation circle experiences and check out the references in this text? Access the full research report! Click here.
Larissa Ferreira is a manager and Environmental Analyst, currently a master's student in Education at UFSCar. She works as a volunteer educator at FunBEA – Brazilian Environmental Education Fund. It was part of the first edition of Rede Comuá's Saberes Program, with research entitled “Community Philanthropy and Environmental Education: analysis of the circle of donors on the North Coast of São Paulo”.
