Recommendations for Funders from Brazilian Environmental NGOs
These recommendations were developed at a meeting of over 40 Brazilian environmental NGOs in 1995. The groups were brought together by Fundacao Francisco (Francisco Foundation), a Brazilian intermediary organization serving Brazil's environmental movement. Many of the recommendations were directed to the unique Brazilian situation at the time or were addressed specifically to Francisco and the role it could play. We have extracted points we found had more general application to donors from around the world.
- Institutional support is the most strategic support needed to strengthen the environmental movement. We need money for rent, communications, office equipment, occasional travel and salaries.
- NGOs must have the means to pay salaries. Without adequate salaries we can neither professionalize our activities nor be held accountable to professional standards of work.
- Give priority to organizations that work collectively.
- Give priority to organizations with a history and a presence within the environmnental movement, those that have demonstrated the capacity to work in cooperation with other organizations and contribute for the construction of the movement as a whole.
- Give preference to small and medium sized organizations, taking into
consideration the quality of their proposals, the ability to implement
them, and the group's involvement with the local community.
- Support development of management and organizational skills. Promote strategic planning within NGOs. Evaluate and assess their performance. Support them in doing this analysis themselves.
- Promote access to electronic information networks.
- Support efforts to research and document the environmental movement's history.
- Encourage publications by NGOs.
- Support the production of a directory of environmental NGOs and
their work, as well as information about their most active personnel.
- Invest in projects of regional interest.
- Support unconventional initiatives.
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