Notícias

The CIES Project was developed to take specialized, humanized and high-technology preventive medical care to communities in need using advanced mobiles medical centers. It is a non-profit organization that focuses on serving low-income people – the population most deprived of access to quality medical care.

The NGO Centro de Assistência Social Nossa Senhora da Piedade (Caspiedade) is involved in at-risk community development in São Paulo, serving close to 1500 families with vocational training, food banks, and social services.

The Instituto para o Desenvolvimento do Investimento Social (IDIS) offers consulting and capacity building services related to impact investing to companies, institutes, foundations, families, and individuals. IDIS´ mission is to systematize different models of social intervention that contribute to reducing social inequalities in the country. In its 10 years of operating history, IDIS has supported 109 clients in the structuring of private social investments, trained 8,000 professionals, and created 18 impact investing organizations that currently managed 500MM Reais in social investments.

Founded in 1992, Davida´s mission is to protect the legal rights of prostitutes. In 2005 Davida launched Daspu, a social clothing brand, in an effort to make the organization more sustainable.

Solidarium is a social business based in Curitiba with a mission to “build a genuine Brazil, rich in diversity, not inequality” using a network of clients, ambassadors, artisans, cooperatives, artists and shops.

Imembuí Microfinanças provides credit to small entrepreneurs in Santa Maria (Rio Grande do Sul) who are generally excluded from access to credit from traditional financial institutions. In 2011, the organization had a year-end positive balance of R$70k after reporting a loss in 2010. It was able to obtain a subsidized line of credit from the Banco de Desenvolvimento do Rio Grande do Sul to open a new line of microcredit, but demand continued to exceed supply.

Feira Preta´s mission is to promote the social and cultural development of the black community in Brazil by promoting entrepreneurship and supporting artists and micro entrepreneurs.

Banco Palmas is a community bank that offers microcredit and capacity building to entrepreneurs, and helps build partnerships and supply chains for its clients. The bank is part of the Instituto Palmas that is an OSCIP created for the dwellers of Conjunto Palmeira (Fortaleza, CE).

Pipa Social is an NGO that created a talent bank of artists, artisans, and fashion designers that live in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro to help them access new markets.

Mobile Metrix is a NGO that was founded in 2010 with the objective of collecting data on the bottom of the pyramid. The organization aims to collect data on ‘invisible’ community members that are not accounted for in traditional research, and remain forgotten in the sectors of employment, education, and heath.

For a long time, the model for socially-aware executives was: “First I’ll earn some money, and then I’ll think about how to help other people”. The current generation doesn’t want to wait any longer. You can see this in the growth in management courses for the social sector with the ever-younger students. According to the Brazilian Geographical and Statistical Institute (IBGE), the Third Sector already employs 1.8 million people in Brazil and this growing trend should continue for the next ten years.

For Marcos Vaz, head of sustainability at Natura, also part of ISE, connecting companies with wider society is the way to get solid and long-term results. “We believe in the importance of mobilizing civil society to create an atmosphere for sustainable entrepreneurship. It is key to develop a model that achieves economic growth, social development and a sensible use of natural resources,” he told us.

Clearly, there is something wrong with this conversation: people introduce themselves by who they are (Maria Clara, for example); not by who they “are not” (Marcelo, in the previous example). The same thing happens for companies: Vale is a mining corporation and not a non-bank. If that is the case, then, why do we think it normal to talk about “non-profit organizations” rather than “organizations with social impact” or, simply, “social organizations”?

In the past five years, peer-to-peer fundraising (or social fundraising, fundraising for events or between friends) has more than doubled the amount raised online—and is close to reaching a billion US dollars.