ISTR Fifth International Conference Cape Town, South Africa / July 7-10, 2002 Transforming Civil Society, Citizenship and Governance: The Third Sector in an Era of Global (Dis)Order

Ricardo Cesar Martins email

The importance of the Third Sector became stronger in the last decades, mostly because the crisis of the Welfare State and the decentralization in Public Administration. Despite this, the Non Governmental Organizations faces a huge obstacle: the lack of an official procedure able to legitimate these organization in civil society.

In a representative democracy, the government is chosen by the majority of the electors. There is an official procedure which aims that the option with better appeal with the individuals to be in the power. However, such thing doesn´t happen with a NGO. Since there is no election, these organizations may be representing the interest of a minority.

The question is that all NGOs faces an obstacle to their development. Since their directors are not elected, these organizations performance may correspond only to the beliefs of their board, without the approval of society. In this context, is extremely important to approach the civil society in the strategic planning of a NGO. The idea is to develop a way to avoid these organizations to be in function of their board, far from the interest of the majority of the society.

Greenpeace is an organization that faces this problem, since it's strategic planning is highly centralized in the board of directors. I had the opportunity to be in touch with these kind of problem because I had a professional experience in Greenpeace Brazil during the year of 2000. So, I developed a proposal for this NGO approach civil society in their strategic planning.

Greenpeace doesn´t accept financial contribution from governments and companies. So, they have just one source of contribution: civil society. Today, the members that supports Greenpeace donate a sun of money to a general account. Only the board decides in which campaign (for instance GMO, pollution and forest protection) these money will be distributed. Greenpeace priorities are focused only in their directors interests.

My proposal is to change the structure of donation from the members of Greenpeace. Instead of these individual support Greenpeace, they should support Greenpeace campaigns. These money will be linked directly with the final product of the organization. And these members should be able to change the campaign that they support at any time.

This is a way for Greenpeace to promote the campaigns with better approval in society. Consequently, this new methodology of contribution would avoid that the orientation of Greenpeace to be representing only the board interests. The subjects more relevant for society would have a higher budget.

One example is that Greenpeace develop two campaigns in a country: forests protection and GMO denunciation. Suppose that forest campaign is more popular in civil society but GMO is more important for the board. In the current methodology, Greenpeace would concentrated efforts in a subject that is not linked with society interest. Consequently, the organization performance would be far from individuals worries.

However, with the new methodology, Greenpeace would offer campaigns with a better appeal in civil society. Consequently, they would be closer to civil society worries, having a better importance and attracting new members .

If Greenpeace adopt this new methodology, the organization would encourage not only the campaigns with better approval; but also the way of intervention better evaluated for civil society. One example is that forests campaign is based on direct actions, while GMO campaign is based in research and denunciation. Even forests being a issue better evaluated for society than GMO, the members could prefer supporting GMO campaign if research is better evaluated than direct actions.

This new methodology would encourage Greenpeace to develop: A) campaigns with better acceptance in civil society; B) way of intervention better evaluated for these individuals.

If the board believe that one subject not popular in society is important, they will need to convince the members of it. So, Greenpeace would also be forced to develop an important communication channel with society, playing an important role in environment education.

Third Sector must represent the believes of civil society and never the desire of the board of directors.

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