Overview
The Main Challenge
With Brazil’s economic progress in recent years has come a challenge to the Brazilian social fabric: International cooperation agencies, which have historically given important political, technical, and financial support to rights-based NGOs and social movements in Brazil, have withdrawn their operations or significantly changed their strategy (reducing resources, changing geographic focus, etc.). The private sources of funding from corporations or individuals do not have a high awareness of human rights-related causes, tending to focus more on topics such as education or job creation, and legal frameworks in Brazil do not incentivise donations and the establishment of private foundations as seen in the US and other countries. Because of these factors, the “human rights field” has found itself in a situation of decreasing support and low capacity, and in light of this, the D3 initiative aims to create a new “architecture of support” for the field.
D3 stands for Dialogue, Democracy, and “Direitos” (Rights).
Primary Partners/Clients
The D3 alliance was formed in 2009 by a group of 13 funders of social projects, aiming to engage representatives of different sectors – social, business and government. Open to the participation of a diverse gruoup of social actors, over the four years of its existence D3 has hosted about 80 different institutions in its meetings (primarily NGOs, funding institutions, and networks of these). The core Reference Group currently consists of the Avina Foundation, the C&A Foundation, the Kellogg Foundation, the Baobab Foundation, and the Brazilian Association of NGOs.
Since the beginning of the second half of 2012, D3 has been working in partnership with Reos Partners to clarify its identity and design its modus operandi.
Key Activities
Reos conducted a series of dialogue interviews and workshops with the D3 alliance to help them map their context, consolidate their identity and vision, define their modus operandi, and engage a core group of leaders from diverse organizations in driving and facilitating the alliance. Reos also introduced dialogue tools to the alliance members to be used in their activities.
Key Results
The partnership with Reos has so far helped D3 to see the challenges and opportunities of their context more systemically, to clarify who they are and how they function, and to plan events for 2013 that will help to strengthen the human rights field in Brazil.
What participants had to say
“The essence of D3 is alignment and dialogue, with respect to a reorganizing of the Brazilian civil society.”
“D3 is an opportunity to engage with people we don’t normally talk to.”
“The decisions around where funding should go always used to come from the North. Today we can have a South-South exchange. We see D3 as a laboratory for implementing this seed.”
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Photo by Salles Neto: A road cutting through an indigenous reserve in Waimiri-Atroari, Roraima, Brasil.
