By Luisa Lima, Communications Manager at IDIS
The institutional development of civil society organizations is not a peripheral element of their work. It is what sustains their ability to act with consistency, transparency, legitimacy, and institutional continuity. When an organization invests in governance, management, communication, technology, or the well-being of its teams, it strengthens the foundations that make its mission viable over the long term.
This agenda is directly connected to trust. Trust in NGOs is built not only through the relevance of the causes they champion, but also through the way they operate, report on their activities, communicate, make decisions, and maintain a public presence. The Brazil Giving Research 2024, conducted by IDIS, reinforces this point by showing that trust in institutions is an extremely relevant motivator for giving, while distrust remains a significant structural barrier: only 30% of Brazilians say that most NGOs are trustworthy, and among those who have not donated for more than five years, a lack of trust and transparency is the most frequently cited reason for not giving, mentioned by 38% of respondents.
In light of these findings, the data from the Panorama Conjunta Report 2025–2026 (available only in Portuguese) become even more relevant. The study mapped 793 training and fundraising opportunities in 2025, compared with 346 the previous year. Although this variation should be interpreted with caution due to methodological changes and the expansion of the sources analyzed, the findings show that institutional development has become more prominent in the sector and is gaining greater visibility. At the same time, the Panorama reveals important limitations in the design of available support. Among the fundraising opportunities, 62.66% provided for funding of up to one year. This suggests that, even as a greater number of opportunities are becoming available, mechanisms that are poorly suited to ongoing institutional strengthening processes still predominate.
Launch event of the study
This interpretation becomes even more relevant when we consider dimensions that remain less recognized among the topics covered by training opportunities. Technology is now essential infrastructure for management, communication, and mobilization. Mental health and self-care, in turn, are conditions for more sustainable teams and more resilient organizations. Monitoring and evaluation, for example, are fundamental for NGOs to learn from practice, demonstrate results, improve their management, and report on their activities more consistently. When these dimensions are not recognized as legitimate components of institutional development, the support provided tends to be insufficient to sustain strong and trustworthy organizations.
In this context, Plataforma Conjunta and its report make a valuable contribution to the sector by bringing visibility to opportunities, gaps, and trends that help advance the debate. Beyond increasing the volume of support available, the challenge now is to improve its quality: through greater flexibility, longer-term funding, and stronger recognition of the capacities that underpin NGOs work. After all, if trust is a condition for increasing donations, strengthening organizations institutionally is part of the path toward achieving that goal. Stronger and more trustworthy organizations contribute to a more robust democratic environment which, ultimately, is the shared horizon toward which we strive.
