The Inter-American Development Bank’s Multilateral Investment Fund announced today the approval of a US$715,000 technical cooperation grant for a program to strengthen civil society organizations in Argentina, Ecuador and Peru to build their sustainability.
The program will be carried out by the international organization Nonprofit Enterprise and Self-Sustainability Team (NESsT). This organization developed a work methodology which provides training and financial contributions to support the development of social enterprise activities with a high social impact aimed at increasing the organization’s financial sustainability.
“Civil society organizations in the three countries participating in this program need to work with alternative sources of funding to offset reductions in traditional international cooperation sources,” said IDB Team Leader María Victoria Sáenz. “The NESsT Venture Fund experience in several Eastern European countries and in Chile over the past nine years shows its potential to promote innovative solutions.”
“The NESsT process consists of three stages: local assessment, initial stage portfolio and advanced stage portfolio, ” added Sáenz. “Before building the portfolio, during the first stage, the legal framework in the country and sector financing are studied, and a business consulting network composed of businessmen, academics, bankers and technical experts is created.”
The program will introduce a methodology in the three countries, which goes beyond competing for funds to finance the socially-based sector activities, and will also generate a window of opportunity for the private sector as well.
Local counterpart funding by NESsT will total US$478,000.
MIF, an autonomous fund administered by the IDB, supports private sector development in Latin America and the Caribbean, focusing on microenterprise and small business.