Brazil has around 300,000 charities, but only one in every four of them have a fundraising department, and not even a third says they are in fact fundraising right now. So, how are they surviving?

1. Captamos – Teaching and exchanging experiences between
Brazilian fundraisers
Brazil has around 300,000 charities, but only one in every four of
them have a fundraising department, and not even a third says
they are in fact fundraising right now. So, how are they surviving?
Fundraising in Brazil is an important challenge, and even bigger
for many non-profits located away from economic centers such as
the cities of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. Consequently, little
access to knowledge and good training programs in fundraising.
In an attempt to bring a solution to this matter, a free online
platform was launched last September: ​Captamos
(www.captamos.org.br).
By using Captamos, any organization, big or small, and even
located far from central areas and with no resources to invest, will
now have access to training at no cost. And Captamos is not only
aimed at formal organizations: local communities and grass-root
groups will benefit from it too.
In addition to offering fundraising courses, Captamos allows
everyone to exchange experiences, find quick tips and news on
the topic. Training and articles will be shared free of cost as the
result of training material donations by Brazilian fundraising
professionals.
We see Captamos as a movement to strengthen civil society,
beginning with the capacity building in fundraising, and soon
advancing to other key issues such as management, strategic
planning and development of social organizations and businesses.
Brazilian non-profits organization have yet a lot to learn. Starting
by learning the culture of asking, and moving to implementing

2. strategic planning for fundraising. Captamos was build with the
purpose, of supporting the growth of Brazilians fundraisers.
Right now, our main challenge is to expand Captamos and make it
recognized by the Brazilian fundraisers as an important tool for
their development and success. We’ve reached a thousand users
in the first two months, but that’s still a small figure in a huge
country such as Brazil.
We intend to measure our impact not only in number of users but
in their participation as well, and for that objective we will
motivate them to share experiences, hints, doubts, ask and
answer questions they may have, contribute with others, and so
on.
We hope this is the beginning of a great movement.
Renata Brunetti ​– ​PhD in Social Psychology at Sao Paulo Catholic
University (PUC-SP), certified in Fundraising Management by The
Fundraising School of the Indiana University Center on
Philanthropy.
She had been a consultant in Fundraising and Sustainable
Development since 1996, as well as a teacher and lecturer on
these subjects to various social organizations.
She is part of Ashoka Support Network (ASN), on the board of
GMK Institute, ABH Foundation and Captamos, and works as a
volunteer in various organizations of civil society.
Most recently she is a consultant in innovation to generate social
and environmental impact, through Attuar, as well as an advisor
on social and impact investment.

3. João Paulo Vergueiro​ - CEO of ABCR – the Brazilian Fundraisers
Association and professor of Corporate Social Responsibility at
FECAP.