Civic Mobilization Infrastructure in an Age of Existential Threats

(Illustration by Bela Jude) 

In March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic began to spread across Brazil. The virus threatened social and economic disruption that would hit underprivileged communities especially hard. A nation already troubled by systemic racism, authoritarian politics, and climate change, Brazil was entering a period that would almost undoubtedly be defined by ever-deepening inequality.

The threat required swift action. Brazilian civil society organizations began probing policy makers about the deployment of emergency cash transfers as quickly as possible. Against all odds, a broad progressive front ushered an unprecedented mobilization in a matter of days that forced the Brazilian government to pay a basic income to its poorest citizens.

The administration of President Jair Bolsonaro saw the idea of emergency cash transfers as a political opportunity to curry favor with voters and offered a proposal. But it faced obstacles: Their program was highly bureaucratic and therefore too slow, the proposed benefit amount was insufficient, and the target beneficiaries were only a small segment of those in need.

Civil society actors had ideas on how to improve the situation, but they were not unified behind a counteroffer. So they instead united around an unheard-of approach under Bolsonaro’s rule. The more than 200 organizations launched a public debate on the issue that would welcome dissenting voices and move toward consensus. Then, after finding common ground on the right program, they would mobilize all political constituencies and unleash them on legislators in Brasilia.

In a matter of a few weeks, this powerful coalition led a historic mobilization effort to push for the approval of an emergency cash transfer program that was much more ambitious than what was initially proposed by the administration. The coalition sought unconditional cash transfers, higher monthly payments, an extended timeframe, and clearer information about selection criteria that would encompass a significantly larger number of beneficiaries. With the help of smart and diligent legislative partners, these asks led to a bill enacted by the National Congress of Brazil in April 2020.

In late June, Brazil’s federal government started paying monthly installments to more than 80 million Brazilians in need. Bolsonaro and his finance minister, Paulo Guedes, first said that the program would last for only three months. But the same coalition that secured the first victory ignited a new campaign calling for more time and resources. By August, the program was extended until December—and Congress has already introduced some 20 bills that would create a permanent basic income scheme in the country.

This astounding victory against an authoritarian government with an established policy of fiscal austerity was enabled by a vibrant civic mobilization infrastructure, led by a small group of actors who played different but complementary roles. In this article, we draw from our experience developing different pieces of civic mobilization infrastructure in Brazil. We aim to introduce a framework for analyzing the social impact sector and formulating ways it can be made more resilient in the face of crisis.

Facilities, Utilities, Spaces

We suggest thinking about civic mobilization infrastructure in the way city planners think about urban infrastructure and land use: with the aim to build functional facilities, effective and abundant utilities, and inclusive spaces. We need the same things from our civic mobilization infrastructure.

Often, the notions of a thriving civil society and strong issue-specific organizations are conflated. To be sure, issue-specific organizations play a vital role in producing knowledge, sharing expertise, and securing credibility for mobilization and advocacy efforts. But they are only one part of a functioning civic infrastructure. Specifically, these organizations are civic facilities—they are built for specific uses. They tend to be cause-based and operate in a niche. International organizations such as Human Rights Watch and the World Resources Institute are useful examples.

Many Brazilian-based and Brazilian-led organizations performed remarkably as civic facilities during the mobilization effort that forced the Brazilian government to pay basic income to its poorest citizens. These organizations had long specialized in relevant issues. They included older organizations such as the Institute for Socioeconomic Studies (INESC), a nonpartisan NGO that for four decades has broadened public understanding of governmental budgets and how they affect people’s lives; and Instituto Ethos, another nonpartisan NGO that since 1998 has promoted corporate social responsibility, including advocating for human rights and empowering discriminated-against groups through more inclusive labor markets; as well as new organizations like the Brazilian Basic Income Network (RBRB), which launched in 2019 to promote universal basic income in Brazil.

A functioning civic mobilization infrastructure, however, is not all about facilities. Civil society as a whole must work together. Coalitions have to be built. Networks need to be set up. The assembly of successful coalitions and networks, in turn, requires different kinds of organizations to coordinate all parties. These groups play the role of civic utilities.

Civic utilities differ from civic facilities in at least three ways. First, civic utilities tend to be multicause organizations. They often prioritize cross-cutting agendas and are very attuned to the news cycle, seizing on the public’s attention and connecting it to the structurally important issues that underlie specific events. Second, civic utilities tend to leverage actual popular support around causes, attaching increased political capital to them, often very quickly. Third, these groups are often relatively new and youth led. As a result, they are well positioned to develop strategies that are contemporary, inherently combining online and offline tactics.

In early 2020, the coalition that advocated for emergency basic income to all Brazilians depended on civic utilities to bring everyone together in common cause. In particular, NOSSAS and Coalizão Negra por Direitos (Black Coalition for Rights) served as civic utilities that coordinated with the civic facilities previously mentioned, kept the coalition together, launched campaign pages and tactics, mobilized popular support, and spearheaded conversations with influential leaders.

Two of us, Alessandra Orofino and Miguel Lago, cofounded NOSSAS in 2011 to change public policy and create solutions to common problems by engaging ordinary citizens in causes and themes that are both relevant to them and pertinent to securing and advancing human rights and democracy in Brazil and Latin America. NOSSAS also aims to attract new constituencies (in particular youth) to these causes, with the ultimate goal of building consensus within society (and not only institutions) to support a rights-based approach to policymaking and the upholding of democratic values even as governments change and public sentiment swings.

Coalizão Negra por Direitos launched in November 2019 as a coalition of more than 150 organizations from the Brazilian black movement. It soon became a central player in advancing equal rights by gathering different generations of the black movement, from older pioneers to young digital-native black activists, to push for change.

The work of these two civic utilities, in turn, was greatly facilitated by the fact that many of the organizations that were part of the coalition attended the same civic spaces and had collaborated before. Civic society organizations need spaces—concrete places or digital meeting points—to connect, debate, and plan action. In civic spaces, the parties become part of the same community: They build trust in each other, and from that trust they can optimize time and resources.

Brazilian civil society succeeded in securing emergency basic income in part because many of the groups involved had already met through civic spaces such as Pacto pela Democracia, where coauthor Manoela Miklos is a founding member. Since 2015, this network has assembled Brazilian civil society organizations to defend, celebrate, and deepen democratic practice in Brazil. Pacto pela Democracia dedicates resources to create a level playing field where stakeholders can connect and democracy is strengthened. Virtually all organizations involved in the basic income coalition were members of the network.

Funding Civic Infrastructure

An efficient civil society is one that relies upon a true division of labor among organizations. Moreover, social impact-driven organizations function better when they focus on one of the three functions and serve as facilities, utilities, or spaces.

However, there are strong financial incentives in the field that shape organizational strategy toward complete self-reliance. Instead of being part of a vibrant infrastructure, organizations seek to become self-sustaining bunkers. Donors frequently invest in civic facilities and assume they will also perform as utilities and lay the foundation for welcoming civic spaces. Such funding strategies tend to create distortions and set in motion dynamics that generate competition rather than collaboration.

Funding utilities cry out for specific methods, and funding spaces cry out for intentionality. A functioning civic mobilization infrastructure cannot be created out of one organization and does not happen haphazardly. It requires careful stewarding of different types of organizations that play their specific roles in the larger ecosystem of a vibrant civil society.

We are entering the era of existential threats. As the planet warms, democracy is challenged, and rights are threatened, civil society organizations will need to focus their efforts where they work best—either as facility, utility, or space—and must collaborate closely with others. There will undoubtedly be an increased need for swift, immediate responses to unforeseen challenges. Donors should start using this lens when supporting the civic space as a whole, creating different metrics of success for each one of the three functions and setting the right incentives for shaping a vibrant civic mobilization infrastructure landscape, ready to be activated when the next disaster happens. Because it will, and soon.

Read more stories by Alessandra Orofino, Manoela Miklos & Miguel Lago.