Message from Peggy Dulany, Founder and Chair of Synergos
It has been fifteen years since I founded Synergos. This milestone has led me to reflect on how things have changed in the availability of human, financial and social capital to enable local communities and organizations to play a major role in solving their own problems. But rather than philosophize, I'm going to try to give you a sense of the changes and trends I've observed on recent trips to Mexico and Brazil.
The first major trend I've noticed, particularly over the past five years (and less than that in some countries), is the increased engagement of business -- multinational, but mainly national -- in strategic efforts to address poverty problems and promote sustainable development.
In Brazil, a group of toy manufacturers formed the remarkable Abrinq Foundation for Children's Rights in 1988 to highlight critical children's issues. ("Abrinq" is derived from the Portuguese for "toy.") Using sophisticated marketing techniques, it has put children's rights on the map throughout Brazil by making it the "in" thing for corporations to certify that they don't use child labor and by helping employees keep their children in school.
In addition, Abrinq -- which has moved far beyond the toy industry -- has mobilized hundreds of professionals, including dentists, surgeons and eye doctors, to provide free treatment to children from low-income families. And now, among many other initiatives, Abrinq is forming local branches through existing non-profits in every state in Brazil.
Synergos has been partnering with Abrinq for several years. This partnership has been fruitful in many ways. Abrinq's staff has been incredibly helpful to organizations with which we work in other countries, providing a model to help these groups think through how they might engage their own business communities around issues of children. And we have connected Abrinq to sources of publicity and funding.
Also in Brazil (the country in which I see the most dramatic strides forward in terms of business involvement in social issues), the country's biggest communications corporation, O Globo, has teamed up with Banco Opportunity, a large investment bank based in Rio de Janeiro, in a national educational initiative to provide hope and a future to some 20 million young people between 15 and 29 who didn't finish primary school. (Older dropouts are welcome to enroll.) Their collaboration offers accelerated courses that enable participants to earn an eighth-grade equivalency certificate within a year. Having this document vastly increases their chances of getting a job that pays enough to feed a family -- and addresses a problem of chronic poverty in Brazil. Globo developed and broadcast tele-courses that cater to the needs of older students seeking a basic education. The program enrolled 86,000 learners in its pilot phase and awarded certificates to 50,000 of them -- an amazing achievement! But what most impressed me is the private-sector mentality that went into program design and marketing. This approach greatly increases the likelihood that the program can successfully go to scale.
Veronica and Daniel Dantas, who run Opportunity Bank, had been thinking about how to apply business principles to improve education in Brazil. The centerpiece of their plan was to offer bonuses (which we in the U.S. might call merit pay) to reward teacher success. Following discussions with Brazilian First Lady Ruth Cardoso, they focused their energies on the critical "in-between" generation that has been excluded from economic advancement because of a lack of skills and credentials. Although an initial idea was to recruit instructors from different professions, the program now focuses on hiring educators with the appropriate training to teach the three courses students must pass to earn the certificate. Bonuses are calculated on how many students pass. This results-based strategy decreases the likelihood that people who cannot teach effectively will seek to participate -- and greatly increases the teachers' motivation to succeed. (This approach also reduced program costs.)
And the preliminary results bear out the Dantas's theory: 96 percent of teachers in the program's first cycle received bonuses!
One of the beauties of the program is its flexibility. Courses are offered in community centers, schools and people's homes. To accommodate working students, some classes are offered in the evening, but others are available mornings and afternoons as well.
You might see a baby crawling in the classroom while her mother studies, and in at least one case, three generations of one family were studying together for their certificates!
The program, piloted in one of Brazil's poorest states, is now being launched in three more states. And a follow-up offering high school diplomas is being planned. The entire initiative, known as "Instituto Multiplicar," is funded entirely by businesses and foundations but co-operates with local community organizations and local government. Stay tuned for more results in five years!
The second major trend I've noticed over the past ten years -- but which has mushroomed in the last three or four -- is the increase of organized philanthropy among individuals, families and the private sector in virtually all the countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America where we work. This development is particularly striking in Mexico, where the visionary leadership of Manuel Arango in starting the Mexican Center for Philanthropy (CEMEFI) 13 years ago has focused attention and energy on getting Mexican people involved and on helping them to be more effective and strategic in their involvement.
CEMEFI -- a Synergos partner -- is not the only organization in Mexico promoting more social involvement. And that involvement is growing not only among those with significant financial resources; a number of foundations that are neither corporate nor family-funded have sprung up to address needs of communities at the local and national levels. Fundación VAMOS, with which Synergos has collaborated since its inception just five years ago, has generated several million dollars from local and international sources to help local communities in several states in Mexico to solve their own problems. These foundations have also been instrumental, together with CEMEFI, in spawning a new generation of community foundations whose boards include local business people and activists, and who raise much of their resources locally.
This trend is actively supported by President Vicente Fox, who provided the impetus to create four community foundations in the state of Guanajuato, where he was governor before becoming president. As president, he is continuing to support the development of community foundations and the federal government is considering making them the vehicle through which most government funding targeting extreme poverty in Mexico is funneled. This prospect poses an enormous challenge for these new organizations, which will require considerable technical assistance to become strong and accountable enough to manage such potentially large funds.
That's where Synergos' services come into play. Participants in its two-year-old Senior Fellows Program have been working with CEMEFI, VAMOS and Fundación del Bajío, one of the community foundations, to ensure that these 13 new foundations get the assistance they need. The Senior Fellows represent an outstanding resource of human capital to emerging foundations: 30 dedicated foundation professionals from 16 countries who donate at least two weeks of their time each year to helping new foundations solve problems related to governance, programming, fundraising and related concerns.
In a recent visit to a community served by Fundación del Bajío in the state of Guanajuato, I was able to see first-hand how Adriana Cortés, founder of the foundation and one of our fellows, had galvanized local business leaders and local and state government agencies, as well as members of the community, to work together to solve problems. Jointly developed plans to clean up a dangerously polluted canal and to ensure that school children receive balanced meals while at school were already being implemented. Other initiatives are on the drawing board. President Fox and members of his cabinet will visit the foundation at a major conference in September, when the movement to build and strengthen community foundations will receive a tremendous boost.
If you ask me if poverty has been reduced as a result of greater business involvement and more generalized participation of people from many countries in philanthropy and social investment, I would have to say not yet. Potent forces are still working in the opposite direction. But in key places you can see dramatic results. And I am firmly convinced that the combination of business smarts with the dedication of the non-profit sector and the muscle of government will galvanize more creative and sustainable solutions. I am equally certain that this new generation of foundations -- family, corporate and community -- that seek to enable communities to solve their own problems, will form the organizational infrastructure necessary to solve poverty problems in a more sustainable way.
The projects I witnessed and people I met during my recent visits let me know that the kind of work that Synergos is doing plays a valuable role in shaping positive development. As we promote peer-to-peer learning, conduct research and disseminate cases of best practices, Synergos' is making an impact that's reaching more and more people around the world.
Best regards,
July 2001
Past Messages
1999
