Photo: Shutterstock / Josep Suria
By Larissa Ferreira
At the beginning of 2022, FunBEA – Brazilian Environmental Education Fund began planning and structuring the donation campaign “How much is it worth?”, which was launched to the public in July of the same year. The objective of the campaign was to support three socio-environmental movements that work with community-based actions, environmental education, culture and art on the North Coast of São Paulo, recognizing the work of these collectives for the conservation of the Atlantic Forest and popular culture.
To this end, we sought to raise awareness of companies and people who have relations with the territory to become donors, becoming members of the “How much is it worth?” and thus, strengthen the initiatives of Coletivo Educador de Bertioga, Coletivo Caiçara and Coletivo Escambau Cultura.
FunBEA’s experience with planning and structuring the “How much is it worth?” (2022) showed that it is challenging to mobilize and donate financial resources in Brazil, especially to support socio-environmental and social justice causes.
Through 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 the Saberes da Rede Comuá Program, we sought, among other aspects, to investigate these challenges in dialogue with the FunBEA's own team involved in the campaign, other funds and social organizations that have experience with donation circles and potential donors of the “How much is it worth?” campaign.
For the FunBEA team involved in the campaign, the main challenges were related to the involvement of different municipalities, which makes fundraising difficult with municipal public bodies. Another challenge highlighted was to give visibility to the area of impact of the collectives' actions for the donors. For example, the collectives that work and contribute to the conservation of the Atlantic Forest in São Sebastião are contributing to the entire North Coast region.
The issue that the impacts, whether positive or negative, that a certain group generates in a territory are not restricted to the territory, is still difficult to understand, to the point of, for example, making it difficult to make a donation that is not to the municipality in which it is located. the donor is located.
Another point raised was the time needed to mature the relationship strategy between donor(s) and the campaign, as in the case of relationships with potential donor(s) where there was no prior contact, this time is usually longer, often exceeding the planned time for the campaign.
In addition to the time-limiting factor, a reflection raised about the relationship with potential donors is in relation to how much space the donor has to build the campaign together. There are different donor profiles and it is a challenge to understand each profile and the involvement they want to have with the campaign.
This issue was also highlighted by Giovanni Harvey, executive director of the Baobá Fund, when he shared that one of the challenges in structuring the fund's donation circle was related to understanding the profile of the donor and defining a strategy that involves that person.
It was also noticed that the challenge of mobilizing resources for socio-environmental and social justice causes is related to raising awareness among those who donate, mainly from the perspective of more structuring and long-term actions.
The manager of the Commercial Association of Caraguatatuba shared that the Association makes donations to entities in the city that are more focused on social assistance. He says that: “A lot of people don’t value the environmental side, the social side because it’s a more emotional reason, right? People always help more.” And he adds that the challenge is to raise awareness among businesswomen about causes that may seem distant from everyday life, such as environmental preservation and the cultural appreciation of initiatives in the territory.
When speaking with Larissa, project and social investment fund manager at Instituto Comunitário Grande Florianópolis (ICOM), she pointed to the challenge of raising awareness of the cause of social justice, which can be a broad topic when the cause is not defined. While Elissa, institutional development coordinator at Associação Acorde, pointed to the challenges of mobilizing donations for an issue that is not social assistance, but rather, for long-term training of young people, for example.
The challenges in mobilizing financial resources to support groups, collectives and grassroots movements that fight for their territories, in defense of life and collective good living are many. It is necessary to break with the logic of just welfare and immediate donations, and expand the understanding of the impact that donations, when committed to the agendas of socio-environmental justice, guarantee of rights and community development, generate in territories.
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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”.