Translator: Roberto Minelli Reviewer: Michele Gianella
Being called a "changemaker" is so amazing.
It's a word that was used with reverence –
almost reverential fear – for decades,
so now I really want to contribute to dispelling this idea.
Actually, you don't need to be a Nobel Prize winner;
you don't need to be a genius or a hero:
everyone, in their own small or big way,
can be an activator – actor – of change.
There are countless examples:
I think of street children in Haiti
who renovated the road safety system;
of one single German female researcher who managed to connect
refugee scientists with local ones;
of a North American teenage girl who wrote hundreds of letters
and succeeded in convincing the education authorities
to change the textbooks
that featured stereotypical images of women.
So now, the bridge
I would like to help create this morning –
the change I want to face –
concerns the third sector, the so-called non-profit.
In particular,
the way we look at third sector organizations
and how we relate to them.
With "third sector"
we refer to a galaxy of associations,
NGOs, volunteer organizations,
social enterprises, cooperatives, foundations, and charities.
340,000 organizations, 820,000 employees,
6.5 million volunteers here in Italy.
A sector that has grown by 60% in the last 15 years
and today accounts for 8% of the Italian industrial system.
But why are we interested in the third sector?
It is not, it's not just for the numbers.
We are interested in the third sector
because it deals with the causes we have at heart;
because it cares about humanity, the planet
and the most vulnerable people we love.
We care about the third sector
because it makes the difference for a better world
because it has the ability to imagine the impossible
and rally hundreds, thousands, millions of people around a common cause.
Seeing mentally challenged people first and foremost as people;
referring to disabled children as simply children;
taking care of the elderly as “resource people”
or of a sick child as a child and not just as a patient.
Offering shelter to women victims of domestic violence,
fighting racism,
promoting interculturalism among new citizens
and helping people understand that we live in an interconnected world,
one in which, for example, the extinction of sea turtles in Policoro
can wreak havoc
on the biodiversity of the entire planet.
Ok, the current climate crisis concerns only some people and not others but,
at the end of the day, we’re all on the same boat.
Not only do third sector organizations
bridge the vacuum, or the abyss,
left by Italy’s obsolete and inefficient welfare system;
not only do third sector organizations substitute for others;
third sector organizations can –
this day an age I’d better say they must –
make the difference:
change the world, transform society,
trigger processes that can generate value,
not only in terms of the end result they produce,
but all along the way – a long and winding road –
that they themselves have paved.
So, this morning I would like to take the opportunity to bust two myths,
two fake myths – two ideological walls –
two fake myths that, as a matter of fact,
have prevented the third sector of our country from changing the world,
keeping it under the thumb
and leaving it in a situation of total subjection and dependence.
Two fake myths
reducing structural costs to the bone
and working only on a project cycle basis.
As to the former:
the ruling mantra is
"Third sector organizations must cost us little money.
All the funds are to be allocated to projects."
So, no funds,
no money for communication,
fundraising, management,
as well as for technological, digital, and administrative development.
It is a path, an isomorphism process
that creates a hunger cycle.
Donors do not want to finance structural costs,
third sector organizations adjust accordingly
and start to cut structural costs,
donors finance fewer and fewer structural costs.
In our country, this dogma is undisputed
in all the procedures and practices of public and private donors,
but also among public opinion.
Even when we donate, when we give our tax donation,
when we contribute money for a cause,
when we sign a petition or campaign,
when we join crowdfunding,
we want to finance projects, not organizations.
So, this ideology
has given life to numerous project hubs
among third sector organizations,
with all too often inadequate organizations, structures, and staff.
A lot of young people in our country – maybe our best brains and hearts –
wish to change the world,
wish to be the protagonists of this change;
they approach the third sector and then they realize
that not only for a lifetime, every year,
they would earn 35-40% less than in other for-profit sectors,
but that they would also end up working in underdeveloped
and underequipped organizations,
which are asked to do more and more with less.
So, in my opinion, the question is:
“Why is it that in every sector,
companies – generally speaking,
the organizations that invest in people,
that invest in skills,
that invest in financial development, in communication –
are those that are most likely to be successful?”.
Yet, this is not true for the third sector.
And even entrepreneurs
that know very well how important it is to invest
in the organization of their company
when it comes to philanthropic activities, only want to finance projects.
In Italy,
this ideology
is deeply rooted in different traditions:
the culture of Catholic volunteering,
the subconscious of a country in which – for hundreds of years –
social services were carried out for free by the Church
and, particularly, by unpaid women – both religious and lay.
A series of “window-dressing” declarations
in the fight against the culture of craftiness
so as to prevent smart, or pseudo-smart, people
from managing to finance friends of friends.
The general lack of social faith in our country
and, on the part of donors,
the fear of taking responsibility for their choices.
Third sector organizations
are desperately in need of support,
flexible funds, of funds for organizations,
funds for missions,
for organizations to be strong, capable, innovative, and creative.
Funds for missions, and not only on a project basis.
So, let's move on to the second point:
projects can be a very good thing,
but they are an end in themselves,
tied in a centripetal bowline knot, twisted on themselves,
unable to transform society,
incapable of building a systematic transformation
and sparking social change.
Working on a project basis means working to attain specific aims,
reinventing a team
with consultants, collaborators, and project-dedicated employees each time;
it means working for extremely short periods of time and time frames –
six months, a year, two years –
periods that are ridiculously short
when really investing in social change.
I think of Amazon, which operated at a loss the first six years
and still had a patient capital:
that patient – flexible – capital that the third sector lacks.
To deal with major issues –
increasing inequality, racism,
climate change, cultural impoverishment,
today’s big issues, all intersectional issues -
we need to invest in interdisciplinary missions,
in missions,
and give organizations the flexibility
to invest in communication, to invest in fundraising,
to invest in digital technologies, in the organization itself.
The organizations and people are in place,
what we really need to change is the approach we use.
On the side of donors,
how to commit money, to fund, support -
go beyond the logic
of the provider that gives funds to the beneficiary
and the beneficiary that receives them.
Instead, we need to build a long-term financial partnership –
and not for six months, a year, two years –
but really for 5-7 years, at least,
and be able to finance on a mission basis.
On the part of third sector organizations,
it is also necessary to stop adapting
and therefore be able to actually say
what the required investments and costs are;
to avoid the isomorphism that forced them to think:
"I exist because I make projects and I make projects to exist"
while trying to secure tenders.
There are already many pilot initiatives –
very few, unfortunately, in our country, for the time being –
new financing options different from tenders,
which are still prevalent in our country.
In my opinion,
today we do have the opportunity
to build a new bridge – a new bridge
between donors, investors, financers and third sector organizations –
which is actually a bridge that concerns us all
and in which each one of us, all of us together,
can truly make the difference.
Young people approaching the third sector for the first time
and not so young people who, instead, want to give what they have acquired
in terms of skills and competences:
all together we can make the difference
because this is a real cultural change
and so the bridge that is to be built is a change,
first and foremost, in the way of thinking and in terms of culture.
Thank you.
(Applause)