SPAIN: Fundraising in Spain

Ten years ago, one woman and one man decided to leave their respective stable jobs in the Catalan Public Administration to take the risk of creating the first fundraising enterprise in Spain, who is called ?Projecció?. Their will was to raise money to help more effectively people in need and to promote social change. Their view was and is that people need money to solve acute problems and that a democratic society requires money to circulate and to be placed where it is more useful for progress to be made. Both tired of the slowness of public administration, they decided to rely on the strategic role of the civil society to convert its generosity in organisational efforts. Their colleagues did not understand them. They insisted that they had not created a NGO but a social strategy and consulting enterprise. They only intended to shape the solidarity that already existed but was chaotic and unorganised. They started their work by tracking who was who in Spanish solidarity. They published a number of books with the emerging data that explained where the funds collected through taxes were ending. They contributed to social generosity and solidarity becoming self-aware of their possibilities of having a real influence. They travelled all over Spain, they delivered training courses and gave lectures, they got in touch with European and American counterparts and created the first association of Spanish fundraisers, which currently gathers around 200 professionals and counsels associations such as the Red Cross and Doctors without Borders. They insist that their work is not to wash the conscience of the rich people or to make the ?dirty jobs? of Public Administrations, which is what they say it happens when NGOs become service enterprises, but to seriously calculate what the society may do for the society. They have interesting data that confirm their views: Private people are more committed with solidarity than enterprises. In 2005, 13% of the Spanish population supported some NGO through contributions that amounted to 184 million ?. Through the income-tax return the Spanish Government collected 642 million ? for the social sector in 2004, quite over the 470 million ? that saving banks had invested in the same year. www.projeccio.com