Communication has always been one of the greatest challenges for civil society organizations that work with human rights and socio-environmental justice. In addition to the content itself, the ways in which this content is produced and delivered to target audiences are also points of permanent reflection.
In 2021, the Philanthropy Network for Social Justice (RFJS) launched the publication “Challenges in communicating community philanthropy and social justice”. The material brings together a series of texts produced from collective interviews, carried out with communicators from the RFJS Member Funds, promoted with the aim of mapping and analyzing the challenges for this communication and to give visibility to the strategies developed.
The result reflects a set of reflections and questions that contribute to thinking about practices and strategies in this field, based on the assumption that communication is essential for strengthening the fight for rights and democracy.
Three points in particular are highlighted by the summary of the contribution of Network Funds communicators in the publication:
O first of them concerns the meaning of communication. It is necessary to produce narratives that raise awareness among people and organizations about donating, report results to keep donors engaged and reach non-formalized groups and social movements.
O second concerns the challenge of this communication, since at this moment a discourse refractory to basic rights prevails even more strongly, which calls for the production of an efficient and engaging counter-narrative to overcome the discourse that equates human rights with the rights of so-called 'criminals' .
And the third brings the need to deal with a new context in relation to access and consumption of new information and communication technologies.
Community of practices stimulates network communication
To address these issues, RFJS and the Funds that make up it began, in October, the movement to create a community of practices focused on communication and narratives, within the scope of the Doar para Transformar program.
A first workshop was held in October, with the aim of moving forward with communicators in this construction, listening to the points of greatest discomfort and the challenges of communicating on a daily basis, as well as ways in which this community can help in this process.
Networking, exchanging experiences and sharing results, good practices, methodologies, tools and strategies for strengthening communication were the first points highlighted, as well as the importance of composing a communication ecosystem for the Network, with a constant supply of hybrid and training content and meetings.
The joint action of the Funds' communicators can generate strategies to enhance powerful narratives in the field, capable of mobilizing and leveraging donations for the field of community philanthropy and human rights and being fuel for advocacy actions within the philanthropic ecosystem.
The group's next meeting should take place in December.
Funds promoted campaigns and developed products supported by RFJS
Between 2020 and 2021, the Funds that make up the Network were invited to present projects to the Support Program, with the aim of promoting the exchange of experiences and learning and articulating partnerships.
The supported initiatives were aimed at combating the Covid-19 pandemic, in three lines of action: creation of funds and emergency support lines for organizations, movements and grassroots groups that carry out direct actions; community mobilization and donation campaigns; and communication, information and knowledge production campaigns.
In the area of communication, four projects were supported:
The initiative of Baobab Fund – Baobá Fund and the emergency response: systematizing information and producing knowledge – aimed to produce knowledge and support for decision-making based on information collected from those supported by emergency donation notices in the context of the pandemic, systematize this information through monitoring and evaluation, in addition to mapping up to 15 good practices and deepening the analysis of the experience, to be systematized in a digital publication.
Elas Background participated in the project Communication of the 2020 Women in Movement Notice: radical confidence in women, within the scope of the launch of the Notice the production of information and knowledge about philanthropy for social justice based on trust, guiding the need for flexible financing for women's organizations. A webinar with RFJS members as guests and the production of a video in animation format added to strengthening the agenda and debate on philanthropy for social justice at the national level.
The project of Positive Background, Communication Actions to Combat Covid-19 in Socio-Environmentally Vulnerable Territories, was conducted with the purpose of disseminating information about COVID-19 prevention – and related topics – in vulnerable socio-environmental communities. The proposal designed the use of tools such as: podcasts, cards and lives to distribute knowledge, thus strengthening community-based organizations.
O ISPN (Society, Population and Nature Institute) presented the project Corner of the Community Owl, a podcast focused on bringing information about the pandemic to rural areas and also promoting the exchange of experiences between communities from different locations in Brazil, with an audience focused on traditional, indigenous, quilombola peoples and communities, artisanal fishermen and babassu coconut breakers.
Méle Dornelas, communication advisor at ISPN, highlights as one of the most significant results of the initiative the understanding of the importance of stimulating community communication in the territories, and the intention is that Canto da Coruja inspires communities to create their own programs.
“The initiative continues with another funder, but the support from the Philanthropy Network was fundamental for us to understand the strength of Canto. We see community members sharing the program on their community radio stations, people commenting on the content, we created a broadcast list that has been gaining a lot of support from people in the communities,” highlights Méle.
“This also expands the ISPN’s institutional brand as a driving agent for democratizing access to information and rights. Canto has been growing, becoming more and more professional, and this support from the Philanthropy Network was fundamental for us to understand it as a communication and life strategy, because access to communication provides access to other rights that guarantee life.”
RFJS thus stimulates collective power for the joint construction of strategies and narratives and the production and sharing of content that can boost and position the agenda of community philanthropy and social justice in the Brazilian philanthropic ecosystem, contributing to the impact on this field in search of expanding grantmaking practices and donation culture.
