FRATE

RNITY IN ACTION

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TrainingProjects

CrowdfundingCommunication

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Presentation

Context

Organizations we work with

Project formulation

Some of our projects

1° Seminar

2° Seminar

Crowdfunding

Communication

Training

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INDEX

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Suma Fraternidad (SF), created in 2011 by initiative of the Focolare Movement in Latin America, is a technical sup-port office, dealing with the preparation and monitoring of socio-economic projects, and training for managers of civil society organizations.

During its three years of existence, SF has coached some 30 organizations from 15 Latin American countries in strengthening their institutional capacity, developing and monitoring projects of social inclusion and poverty reduction. SF identifies the most suitable calls for proposals (from both multilateral and bilateral sources of funding), according to the current capacity / level of institutional development of the organizations (NGOs). Then, it provides a tailored made support in drafting proposals, in order to build up local capacity within the organization itself, and support in monitor-ing and evaluation of the projects under implementa-tion. To date, SF has prepared 23 cooperation projects for its members, of which some are still waiting for funding.

PRESENTATION WHAT WE DO

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WHAT WE DO

Technical support in drafting proposals,

monitoring and evalua-tion of the projects

under implementation

Virtual dissemination of good practices in managing CSOs, innovative ideas

for social projects and coopera-

tion calls

Training in project formulation and

institutional strength-ening

Free crowdfunding platform

for social and cultural projects

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Context Most countries in Latin America have realized important progress in terms of economic growth and development over the last ten to twenty years. However, and especially after the 2008 international financial crisis, the region is still confronted with the persistent challenges of poverty, inequality and social exclu-sion. In particular specific groups, including indigenous people, single-parent households, women, margin-alized youth, abandoned children, migrants and drug addicts continue to be among the poorest and most excluded sectors through-out the region.

In Latin America, macro-economic re-forms have clearly not improved opportuni-ties for the weakest in society - on the contrary, it has deepened the economic and social divide and inequality. Latin America re-mains one of the most unequal regions of the world. The Eco-nomic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (CEPAL), in its most recent survey (2013), says 167 million people still live in extreme poverty in the region. In most countries, a small proportion of the population ac-cumulates a large percentage of all national income, while the

167 million people still live in extreme poverty in the region (CEPAL).

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Richest 10% of the population cumulates 32% of total income (CEPAL).

poorest only receive a minimal part. CEPAL indicates that, in 2012, on average, the rich-est 10 percent of Latin America’s population cumulates 32 percent of total income, while the poorest 40 percent benefits only from 15 percent. Against this backdrop, and the dwindling State budg-ets to support the civil society in Latin America (very often linked to political patronage), the NGOs in the region are facing an uphill battle to ensure the sustainability of their social and economic programs for the most needy and vul-nerable sectors.

Therefore, it is imperative to improve the skills of the NGOs in terms of project preparation, budgeting, sound technical implementation, financial man-agement, monitoring and evaluation – in order to increase their fund-raising capaci-ty, especially with international multilateral agencies and bilateral donors.

Besides, NGOs should also focus more their attention on income-generation and employment creation projects, to ensure the self-sustainability of the project beneficiaries on the long-run.

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It is impera-tive to improve the skills of the NGOs.

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Organizations

Social Organizations relatedwith the Focolare Movement

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Asociación Igino GiordaniCentro Educativo FioreColegio Santa María (Igino Giordani AC)Centro Social AleluyaConstruyendo Comunidad ACDispensario Médico DentalRefugio UrbanoBrigadas sanitariasCentro Social La MercedCasa para la Mujer EmbarazadaFundación Mundo MejorProyecto Comun-unidadEscuela Sol NacienteMovimiento de los FocolaresRincón de Luz - Fundación UNISOLCasa de los NiñosCentro Maternal Clara Luz - Fundación UNISOL Fundación para Una Vida DignaAPADIS (Asoc. de Padres de Ayuda al DIScapacitado)Centro Comunitario Unidad - Asoc. Civil Nuevo SolJuntos por el Barrio - Asoc.Civil Nuevo SolCasa del Niño - Asoci. Civil Nuevo SolEsperando sueños - Asoc.Civil Nuevo SolCasita EstrellaNuevos Horizontes - Asoc.Civil Nuevos SignosFundación LucíaEscuela Aurora - PROARVATinku KamayuProyecto El CastilloEscuela y Clínica UNIPAR (UNIdad y PARticipación)CODESO - Comunión para el Desarrollo Social

El SalvadorGuatemalaMexico

Colombia

CubaBolivia

Argentina

ChileParaguayUruguay

31 Organizations we work with

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PROJECTSWe provide advice to our member organizations (and some-times to other NGOs) in the different stages of the Project Cycle Management (PCM), from identifying the project, to drafting it and submit it to a potential donor, manage its implementation, including monitoring and evaluation. We involve all staff of the organization: managers, coordinators of the technical sectors and the recipients of the project.

Normally, we divide our coaching in 4 stages:

PREPARATION AND SUBMISSION OF PROJECT PROPOSALS

Analysis and self- assessment of the organization and its en-vironment - that will allow them to make sound and cred-ible proposals. We heavily emphasize the centrality of the target population in the project, in order to ensure success and sustainability. In every project we encourage network-ing, drawing support from companies, other NGOs, and state actors, whenever feasible.

Identify appropriate funding opportunities (calls for proposals) that fully match the size and goals of the target organization. We raise awareness about the need to gradu-ally improve the management capacity to implement those projects. We perform a careful analysis, together with the NGO, on how to seek funding and from which donor.

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Improve the man-agement capac-ity to implement those projects.

Once approved, we also support the NGOs in project man-agement, and more specifically in Moni-toring and final evalu-ation of the project. When the project comes to its end, we support the NGO in an objective evalua-tion: has the project achieved its objec-tives, has it improved the networking of the NGO, is the target population better off, what are the lessons learned, have the sus-tainability measures been successful, what corrective measures are needed?

In project preparation, we provide technical assistance for the stake-holders analysis, the problem and objectives tree, the general and specific goals, the con-crete and measurable results to be achieved, and the activities to be carried out. Then we de-scribe the indicators to measure the impact and success of the project, and the risks and as-sumptions underlying the proposal. All these steps are performed by the NGO itself (learn-ing by doing), so that gradually we are leav-ing behind the neces-sary skills for project development, without creating a continuous dependency from our office.

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Emphasize the cen-trality of the target population in the project to sustain-ability. 11

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BeneficiariesNGO Name Country

APADIS

Archdiocese of Salta

Casa de los Niños

Comisión Católica de Migraciones

Escuela Aurora

Fazenda de la Esperanza

Fazenda de la Esperanza

Fraternidad por una Vida Digna

Mariápolis Lía

Scalabrinians Sisters

Tinku Kamayu Cooperative

UNIPAR

10 people with intel-

lectual disabilities

350 people

20 women

300 refugees

100 young people

30 young women

200 young addicts

15 families

150 young people

50 migrant women

30 women

150 young people

Some of our PROJECTS

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Title Amount (€)

Collection of plastic bottles to employ people with

intellectual disabilities

Vocational and skills training to promote sustainable

tourism in rural communities

Warmi mikhuy thani (Women and Healthy Feeding)

Durable solutions for Urban Refugees

Development of an audiovisual production center

Bakery and training for the rehabilitation of women

with different addictions

Employment opportunities and job training for re-

habilitated young drug addicts

Building Decent Houses for Vulnerable Families

Summer School of Sophia Universitary Institute in

Latin America

Labor inclusion of migrant women

Indigenous women artisans and social inclusion

Start-Up of a Computer Resource Center

19.000,00

64.000,00

13.000,00

105.000,00

15.000,00

14.000,00

115.000,00

19.000,00

70.000,00

12.000,00

18.000,00

20.000,00

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Fraternity IN ACTION

Due to the interest shown by the participating NGOs and UNIRE-DES (Brazilian organization with a mission similar to ours), we de-cided to organize a meeting for Latin American civil society or-ganizations to further enhance their capacity. The seminar “Fraternity in ac-tion: the basis for social cohesion in the 21st Century” was held in October 2013, with the participa-tion of the heads of staff of most of our affiliated social organiza-

tions in the Caribbean and Latin America. 90 people from more than 43 organizations gathered in the Ginetta Mariápolis, São Paulo, to promote the exchange of good practices, create syner-gies between organizations, re-ceive training on topics related to social management.Participants shared moments of reflection, dialogue and training, thereby strengthening the uni-ty and brotherhood among the members of the organizations, as most of them had never been in contact before.Two training workshops on pro-fessional tools were delivered: one on “Social Impact Indica-tors“; and the other on Commu-nication, i.e digital strategies to increase the visibility of social organizations. Besides we organ-ized two panels with internation-al experts about “Social Doctrine

MEETING FOR ONG MANAGERS

Seminar

2ND

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90 PARTICIPANTS

ORGANIZATIONS

6 PRESENTATIONS

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MARIAPOLIS GINETTA, BRASIL

of the Church and the Charism of Unity” and “the Social Issues in Latin America and the Carib-bean.”Finally, a plenary on Building a Network of Social Projects in-spired by the charism of unity was organized. The conclusions of the seminar and new propos-als for the future were outlaid; expressing a desire to continue working together, strengthening the unity of the organizations to create a new Network.The Summary and Conclusions of the Seminar can be seen online in our website.

2° Seminar

Have a greater im-pact of the NGOs work in the re-gion.

The objective of the 3rd seminar, which gathered 33 organizations from 10 countries, was the creation of a Latin-American Network of Social Organiza-tions, linked to the Focolare Movement.

This network was built in order to help our member NGOS to be more efficient and have a greater impact when adressing the serious problems of inequality in Latin America and the Caribbean.

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Create social im-pact syner-gies, build strategic alliances

Build co-mon pro-jects helps increase their im-pact.

During the gathering, the leaders of the organizations met with the president and co-president of the Foco-lare Movement, Maria Voce and Giancarlo Faletti. They encouraged the organizations to build this network in order to enhance their influence in the region, enriched with diversity.

A Committee was elected to chair the network, with members of different countries. Together the organization members wrote a Charter of Principles, established communication channels amongst themselves, and defined objectives for 2014 and 2015.

Through the network, the organizations wish to strengthen each other, share tools and strategies and buid an alliance with common projects. The overarch-ing goal is to increase their impact in their area.

Latin American Network of NGO

• 33 Social Organizations• 10 Countries

At the end of 2013, we started our free crowd-funding platform. Some of the organizations that have submitted projects finished being partially funded, but lately we are reaching even 100% of the requested amount (hous-ing project in Santa Fe). The platform offers to our affiliated organizations the possibility of a new line of funding.It is worth highlighting that the use of the plat-form is, per se, a valu-

Mekuido Project (Nuevos HorizontesPunta Alta)

CrowdfundingPlatform

El RoperitoComunitario(Nuevo Sol AssociationBuenos Aires)

CrowdfundingPlatform

able learning process. By accesing it, and posting their proposal, the or-ganizations learn how to communicate by differ-ent means, take advan-tage of multimedia tools, value the importance of strong internal and exter-nal communication, and exercise their skills in for-mulating and presenting specific projects.

The platform raises awareness and facilitates dissemination of the or-ganization goals for fund raising purposes. With proper professional coaching, this tool could also be useful for newly born grassroot organiza-tions, which cannot yet access to funds from the international coopera-tion.

3 Projects

Taller Me KuidoWorkshop to pre-vent child sexual abuse

El Roperito Comuni-tarioTextile craft work-shop for women with no education

Construyendo una Vida DignaConstruction of per-manent housing in vulnerable contexts

2014Fraternidad por una Vida Digna Association, cañada de gomez,Santa Fe

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COMMUNICATIONOur communications area is critical to ensure fluent contact with other organizations. Not only it allows us to keep close contact with our partners, but it also of-fers digital free services to other NGOs all over the re-gion. Our webpage includes a specialized blog on non-profit management and a free use crowd funding platform. The purpose of the blog is to keep track of the training and advice we provide to our partner organizations. This digi-tal space is very useful, as knowledge and experience are translated into reading material available for everybody on the web. Our blog is now a reference on nonprofit manage-ment, providing tools, advice and strategies for NGOs staff.

We started the blog 3 years ago, becoming one of the first webpages in Spanish providing technical information to the NGOs, with more than 4.000 visits a month.

We established alliances with similar actors in the region, such as Wingu and Idealistas.org, to enhance the impact of our blog.

Last year we redesigned our website, in order to include a crowd funding platform where NGOs can post their projects for fund raising. If one of our partner organizations wishes to start a crowd funding campaign, we provide the necessary support and advise.

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Our Channels:• Webpage• Facebook• Twitter• Youtube• Crowdfunding• Blog• Newsletters

We also use the social network and email mar-keting to increase our vis-ibility and impact. This allows us to reach a wider public. , encouraging NGOs to present projects to international calls for proposals.

Our office also provides advice to our partner NGOs to build their own communication strate-gies. We design biannual magazines with their news and pictures, and invite them to write on our blog to get further digital visibility.The great challenge is to

4000 visits to our blog

a month

encourage and convince our affiliate organiza-tions to establish a com-munication office, as part of their own staff struc-ture. On that road, we provide advice and sup-port to them to launch their own digital cam-paigns.

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We have already provided on-the-job training to 14 organi-zations (NGOs): 10 in Argentina , 2 in Uruguay and 2 in Paraguay. This kind of training, allows them to better understand their strengths and weaknesses, improve their technical skills and even sometimes update their mission, working principles and goals. Very often, hard years of intense fieldwork, dealing with daily stressful situations and demands, does not allow the NGO staff to take some distance and re-think some of the core issues at stake. We are there to help them to do so. We also work intensely on how to ensure the long-term sustain-ability of the organization. This sometimes leads to internal re-structuring, new ways of financial support (including contribu-tions from the beneficiaries themselves), more networking, and increased drafting and submission of international coopera-tion projects, exploring new partners. We also worked more on strengthening visibility and communications aspects, opening themselves more to the world and the wider public. Several NGOs opened new channels of communication (Facebook, Google+, etc.), others are updating their website or creating it for the first time.In 2015 and 2016, we plan to provide more formal training in top-ics such as PCM, project preparation, logical framework, grant applications for multilateral and bilateral donors, budgeting, fi-nancial management, monitoring and evaluation.

TRAINING

Sumá Fraternidad

info@sumafraternidad.org

Management Staff

Massimiliano CurtiDenis Van DamVirginia OsorioMaria Zinn

General Information

Lezica 4358Buenos Aires, ArgentinaPhone: (+54) (011) 4981-4885

www.sumafraternidad.org