ELAS Social Investment Fund was present at the 1st International Meeting of the Network of Independent Funds for Social Justice. The event, which took place in Rio de Janeiro from July 8 to 10, sought to broaden the reach of the actions of Brazilian independent funds and community foundations.
The aim of the meeting was to raise awareness and expand social justice philanthropy in Brazil. "It's a new type of philanthropy in Brazil. We want people to invest their resources with social justice in mind," said Cindy Lessa, the network's coordinator. According to her, the difference is that the members of the organization work with human rights and social inclusion, focusing on gender, racial or socio-environmental issues, for example.
The general coordinator of the Elas Fund, Amália Fischer, discussed the challenges of philanthropy for social justice in a talk show with members of the Fund Network on the 8th. Amália also spoke about the history of social investment funds for women in Latin America on the 10th, when she took part in a panel discussion mediated by Ana Toni (Public Interest Management, Instituto Clima e Sociedade) with representatives from organizations such as the Brazil Human Rights Fund (Ana Valéria Araújo), the Ford Foundation (Nilcea Freire), the Working Group Philanthropy for Social Justice and Peace (Chris Harris) and the Group of Foundations and Business Institutes - Gife.

Enhanced partnerships and actions
The Elas Fund has been a major driving force behind the Network of Funds since its inception, investing ideas and resources in this initiative. Created in 2012, the Network of Funds leverages the actions of the ten national community funds and foundations. Amália Fischer highlights the importance of this coordination: "The Elas Fund has worked very closely with the network's partners: we supported the creation of the first call for proposals for the Baobá - Fund for Racial Equity (1st Call for projects by Afro-Brazilian civil society organizations (CSOs)), we talked about selecting projects and donations with the Brazil Human Rights Fund at the time of its creation and we are going to mobilize resources jointly. We also have a partnership with the Casa Socio-Environmental Fund to jointly select projects in the area of gender and climate change."
The ten funds and foundations that take part in the network are national, have been created since 2000 and support around 11,000 projects in Brazil and Latin America. "What unites us is the way we make donations, guided by a logic of social transformation. We make citizen donations, which promote and preserve rights," explains the general coordinator of the Elas Fund.