• Conference Brief
• Date & Venue
• Themes
• Organizers & Supporters
• Conference Agenda
• Conference Outcomes
• Conference Papers
• For More Information

• Asset Based Community Development Workshop
  February 21

Conference Brief

Between February 18 and 20, 2002, over 40 individuals from three countries and 35 organizations in Asia, Europe, Canada and the US met in Patthaya, Thailand for a two and a half day conference on accountability and sustainability within civil society resource organizations (CSROs). (For a description of CSROs, see below). Participants came from the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Japan, Canada, the Netherlands, and the U.S. to engage and exchange with one another. In total, 14 case papers and slide presentations were produced and disseminated for the conference.

The objectives of this conference were to:

• Showcase innovative approaches used to achieve financial sustainability among CSROs in Southeast Asia
• Promote new thinking and standards of CSRO accountability
• Strengthen the existing networks and linkages among CSROs, within and across countries in Southeast Asia.

Civil Society Resource Organizations (CSROs), a sub-sector within civil society, are indigenous institutions created with the mission of addressing the under-served aspects of national life and development. As intermediary organizations, CSROs mobilize their own resources and channel these to civil society organizations and communities. Despite their creative strategies, the success of CSROs in addressing their financial sustainability has, however, remained sporadic. And for CSROs that are just starting, the chances of achieving their financial sustainability goal have been diminished by the Asian financial crisis and the difficult years thereafter (a more detailed description of CSROs is available at the Synergos Global Philanthropy website).

Synergos' capacity building program for Asian CSROs believes that despite being few and far between, the success of such CSROs offers a wealth of lessons for other CSROs to consider. Thus, the program has facilitated the sharing of experiences among CSROs across Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines on sustainable financing strategies and their attendant issues. Two years into the program, there have been two country workshops held in Indonesia and Thailand tackling ways for CSROs to ensure their sustainability.

This conference narrowed in on this theme even more by looking at the Twin Challenges of Financial Sustainability & Accountability. CSROs continue to grapple with the tension between the objectives of financial self-reliance and maintaining legitimacy before their constituents. In the midst of sometimes conflicting interests among CSROs' multiple constituencies, questions arise such as who are CSROs accountable to and how can they improve their public image? How do CSROs measure their performance and communicate the results?

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Date and Venue

February 18-20, 2002
Ambassador Jomtien Hotel
Patthaya, Thailand

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Conference Themes

The conference focused on the following themes:

The Twin Challenges of Financial Sustainability & Accountability
CSROs continue to grapple with the tension between the objective of financial self-reliance and maintaining legitimacy before their constituents. In the midst of sometimes conflicting interests among CSROs' multiple constituencies, how do CSROs manage a balancing act? This question inspires further questions: who are CSROs accountable to and how could CSROs improve their public image? How do CSROs measure their performance and communicate the results? A panel of presenters from the Philippines and Indonesia will share their experiences and exchange views with the participants.

Sustainability of Partners & Communities
As the role of the State in development recedes following the decentralization trend, there is an ever-increasing scope for civil society organizations (NGOs, CBOs, etc) as active players in development. It thus becomes incumbent upon CSROs to address, not only their own sustainability but the sustainability of their partners and communities with whom they work. Cases will be presented from Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines. Small group discussion follows the two panel presentations.

Increasing the Synergy Between CSROs & Other Sectors
Achieving financial sustainability and enhancing accountability for CSROs entail working effectively with other sectors. The prospects for CSROs developing economic activities to support their mission are high, provided the prerequisites are met. Government outsourced services and official development assistance are options open to CSROs, provided CSROs learn the rudiments to do so. Presenters from Thailand, Philippines and Indonesia will share lessons on the relationships with government, ODAs and the market. Small group discussion follows the presentations and donors will share their views on what they foresee as areas of common interest between them and the CSROs.

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Conference Organizers & Supporters

The conference was co-organized by the Philippine Business for Social Progress and The Synergos Institute in cooperation with the Thai Fund Foundation/DSC of Thailand and Bina Swadaya of Indonesia.

The Sasakawa Peace Foundation, NOVIB and the Ford Foundation provided funding support to the conference.

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Conference Agenda

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Conference Outcomes

The immediate outcomes of this event are that:

• CSRO leaders from the Philippines, Thailand and Indonesia were exposed to new thought and approaches on financial accountability and sustainability being tried and tested across the region.
• The growing network of CSRO leaders across the three countries was further strengthened through the sharing of experiences, questions, concerns, and innovation. Already, two exchanges will be taking place this summer between an Indonesian and Philippines organization to further share ideas and concerns.
• CSRO leaders in each of the three countries formulated country plans to address how their respective CSRO sectors can work together to fill important gaps in practice.

For the longer term, we hope that the CSRO exchange will continue as there is no doubt that the value of connecting with peers in the region was felt to be of immense benefit for the participants. Moreover, we hope that those organizations that felt challenged to try new approaches to their own financial sustainability and accountability will in fact attempt to try new approaches and techniques.

Conference Highlights

The following sets of issues framed the structure of the conference agenda: accountability and sustainability; sustainability of partners and communities; and increasing the synergy between CSROs and government, market, and Official Development Assistance (ODA) agencies. Below are some key points of discussion raised by both speakers and the audience.

Session I. Accountability & Sustainability

• Accountability and sustainability are highly dependent on one another as an accountable organization is one that has the capacity (through strong staff and policies) to sustain itself over the long term. As the Indonesian panelist from YAPPIKA articulated, accountability needs to be regarded as extending to donors as well as the public and society at large.
• High levels of CSRO accountability and sustainability are required in order to ensure that CSROs are strong resource mobilizers and disseminators. Resources can be generated either internally from activities of CSROs and endowment funds, or externally from government, the general public or persons.
• Resource distribution and management are likewise critical and necessitate capacity building to transform CSROs into capable doers, supported by competent and resourceful humans. They must be 'learning organizations' meaning that they have systematic and positive perspectives that allow for the development of synergy among staff and Board as they go forward in rethinking and adjusting organizational goals and processes. That having been said, the importance of creating the right enabling environment, defined by appropriate government policies, legal and regulatory structures, and active networks or movements of CSROs was underscored too as being important to ensure effective resource distribution and management.
• The work of the Philippine Council for NGO Certification (PCNC) to create and implement a system of certification for NGOs (including CSROs) was well received by participants. PCNC maintains an ethical code of standards and accountability by which all NGOs are judged. This has become so important in Philippine civil society that it serves as an effective push for CSROs there to maintain high working standards of accountability. Indonesian and Thai participants expressed significant interest in pushing for a similar national code in their respective countries.
• There is a need to develop stronger tools of measurement amongst CSROs. Tools are important to measure impact and ensure a continuous process of self-reflection by an organization. (For example, has it been fulfilling its mission? Are the values and principles of the organization still relevant in responding to prevailing problems?) The importance of developing tools that can measure dynamic changes (i.e. not just static) was also emphasized.

Session II. Sustainability of Partners and Communities

• The importance of leveraging existing social capital at the level of communities was highlighted. Presenters emphasized the importance of local wisdom and knowledge which are themselves key to ensuring sustainability. Speakers articulated that this is not as easy as it seems. It requires listening and it requires resisting the urge to impose standards on community development.
• The lack of mechanisms for measuring social capital underscores the need to develop this.
• There is a need to ensure that CSROs do not become too heavily politicized in their work.
• The Children and Youth Foundation of the Philippines offered the following definition for the hallmarks of an effective organization:
• Continued and satisfactory functioning of the organizational structure
• Continued achievement of program objectives through service delivery standards
• Enhanced organizational capabilities and continued provision of benefits and initiatives
• Ensured financial sustainability of the organization
• Implementation of effective programs that generate long-term commitment for partners.
• The Rio Tinto Foundation of Indonesia, a corporate foundation, provided an example of how a business group has helped in community development through a guiding policy founded on active partnerships with communities based on mutual respect and trust. Its community development strategy starts with compliance to local and national standards, risk management that inspires innovations, and values creation to preserve the company image and well being of the society and community.

Session III. Increasing the Synergy between CSROs and other Sectors

• The Keynote speech by Peggy Dulany, Chair of The Synergos Institute, spoke to the importance of CSROs seeing themselves as bridging organizations. Bridging means building alliances not only across organizations but across the main sectors of civil society, government and business. She underscored the ideal position in which CSROs find themselves to build these bridges, acting as they often do to convene and initiate dialogue. This theme in effect carried through several of the presentations and discussions. Ms. Dulany proposed three main principles of bridging:
  
• Those most affected by the issue at hand need to be involved in the solving of it. There are multiple pillars that need to be erected to cross the divides that often exist and prevent solution building. These pillars need to be identified. The first pillar may be local leaders, CSOs and local government representatives who are effective speakers and listeners.
  
• Allies are needed to strengthen the voice of groups who are otherwise marginalized.
  
• Groups and individuals need to know how to manage conflict and when (and how) to pull back from it.

Session IIIA: CSRO-Government Collaboration

• Two very different but innovative schemes were presented which collectively underscored the need to work with government and also the potential difficulties in doing so. In the first case, debt-for-nature swaps in Indonesia was the case presented by the Indonesian Biodiversity Foundation (KEHATI). Debt-for-nature swaps (DNS) are one of many alternative-financing instruments that can be used to generate necessary funding for conservation or sustainable development initiatives. Two options were described: bilateral debt-for-nature conversion and three party debt-for nature conversion. Some of the lessons learned are:
• Bilateral debt swaps offer an opportunity to reduce or write-off sovereign debt between the government of Indonesia and bilateral creditors. Transparency and an accountable system of governance are important.
• DNS opens windows that could be used for other development programs in the areas of poverty alleviation, education, and health.
• Working with government is possible and is a must especially with the magnitude of societal problems in Indonesia.
• The second involved the case of the Peace and Equity Foundation which has been working towards raising funds from the capital market since mid-February of 2002 to distribute in its grants program and who, in doing so, raised the ire of government. Working with the securities market, the foundation considered the concept of purchasing Treasury Notes (T-Notes) or bonds from the government, which serve as receipts of government borrowing used to claim debt payment at the end of a prescribed period of time. After months of multi-sectoral planning and coordination, they successfully obtained P35 billion ten-year zero coupon T-Notes with a secondary reserve eligibility granted by the Monetary Board. A 1 billion peso fund corpus will generate an interest income of anywhere from P70 million to P100 million a year to distribute in grants. The government however has reacted negatively to this action, believing that the organization acted improperly and misused connections that staff of the organization have to government officials. It remains to be seen what the outcome of this issue will be. A senate hearing on the matter as just ended. Many nonprofit officials feel that there was discomfort amongst government and some members of the public in seeing a foundation act outside of its traditional means of revenue generation.

Session IIIB: CSRO-Market Collaboration

• The theme of social entrepreneurship was raised as an important area of thought for CSROs to consider in their work. Social entrepreneurship provides a strategy for democratizing the market as sustainable development is advanced and also encourages people to think about bridging sectors as such entrepreneurs engage with business leaders to create and manage 'mindful' markets.
• This discussion was supported by the experiences of Bina Swadaya in Indonesia and GreenNet/Suan Ngung MeeMa Company of Thailand. While much success has been gleaned from these organizations in this process, the following lessons learned were highlighted:
• Conflicts between NGO professionals and business people often occur over differing ideologies and practices
• There is often a lack of business skills and experience among NGO staff
• It can be difficult for an NGO to access funds as they are not looked upon as a corporation
• Once foundations engage with the market there may be a growing sentiment of discomfort from the public as it perceives the NGO to be moving from charitable to profit-driven activity
• The juxtaposition between nonprofit and for-profit activity can raise legal dilemmas
• There is a need to campaign and advocate for more government policies that favour producers, such as farmers and small businesses.

Session IIIC: CSRO-ODA Collaboration

• Three different examples of the ways in which ODA agencies and CSROs can collaborate for mutual benefit were exemplified. One way is by the delivery of funds to civil society organizations through mechanisms controlled by an ODA agency, often on short-term funding arrangements. An example of this relationship was exemplified in the presentation of the Community Recovery Program (CRP), which was set up through the convergence of grants from four ODA agencies - DFID and governments of the Netherlands, Sweden and New Zealand.
• The second option entails a significant degree of sharing of decision-making with civil society organizations over the allocation of resources and often involves setting up new permanent organizations. The example of the Local Development Institute (LDI) in Thailand was presented.
• The third option results in the creation of an autonomous endowed foundation with maximum decision making control given over to the foundation. The case of the Foundation for the Philippine Environment was presented as an example of this option.
• While there are various opportunities therefore for CSROs and ODA agencies to collaborate, the cases indicated that the relationship is not always an easy one to manage and takes several months, if not years, to build up necessary levels of mutual trust.

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Conference Papers

Presentations and discussion from the conference are online at Synergos Global Philanthropy website. The entire conference proceedings may also be downloaded for printing (325K PDF). Text of these materials was prepared by the Philippine Business for Social Progress.

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For More Information

Please contact:

Jazmin Gutierrez
Associate Director
Philippine Business for Social Progress
Magallanes Cor Real St., Intramuros
Manila 1002, Philippines
Tel: +63 (2) 527-7741
Fax: +63 (2) (63-2) 527-3740
jgutierrez@pbsp.org.ph

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Philippine Business for Social Progress       The Synergos Institute