By Joana Mortari
Member of the Coordination Committee. of Movement for a Culture of Giving and Director of Acorde Association
In the midst of its formation, in 2011, the Movement for a Culture of Giving – then a group of five instigated to strengthen giving in Brazil – we missed talking to people 'out there' and collecting data about Brazilian giving. The previous year there had been a small campaign at the now extinct NGO Fair. At the same time, the ABCR made contact with the 92nd Y, the American community center where the GivingTuesday. As a group, we decided to combine all efforts: a Brazilian campaign name with American technology and strength. This is how Dia de Doar came about, the fifth campaign to join what is now a significant network of more than 150 countries that promote GivingTuesday.
For Americans, the idea is to create a donation movement after the shopping wave generated by Black Friday and Cyber Monday. For us, in the Movement, Donating Day is an opportunity to take the conversation about donating to the four corners of Brazil, causing each individual citizen to identify with their power to act on social challenges through a cause.
Over the years, this first common project of the Movement became stronger in ABCR, an essential organization for the field. The Movement also grows, other fronts open, people join. In 2017 we launched the first notice of Bis Fund, whose mission is to promote the culture and practice of donation in the country.
Dia de Doar and the Bis Fund express, since their conception, ideals that became clearer with another common project of the Movement, the document For a Brazil + Donor, Always, prepared by the Task Force and published in August 2020. Since the launch of the document, we began to look at the Movement's projects through the lens of the five guidelines it proposes for the maturation of the Culture of Donation in Brazil.
We found, for example, that any Day of Giving campaign creates an opportunity to donate, a recommendation in the guideline Educate for a Culture of Giving, in addition to creating Engaging Narratives that take the conversation about donating to the day-to-day lives of cities, neighborhoods, schools and companies. The resources raised through the campaign – the vast majority of which are free and institutional in nature – contribute to Strengthen Civil Society Organizations.
Today we are more than 150 people and organizations in the Movement, exchanging intelligence, working together and inspiring and supporting each other on the path to a country “where people donate generously. Where causes and organizations receive the necessary resources to fulfill their role and form an organized, vibrant, powerful and autonomous civil society, thus strengthening democracy”[1].
