The philanthropic challenge

In a way, the mission of my business group had an ethical and social focus. In addition, FUNDES, the foundation I had created in the mid-80s, was run as a business, centered around entrepreneurship and efficiency. The Earth Summit and the BCSD had taught me a great deal about sustainable development. The success I had had with my business investments meant that I had capital that was no longer tied to these investments. All these events and experiences made me think about taking a bigger step toward the world of philanthropy, combining the best of the business and the foundation worlds.

There was, I felt, a great need for philanthropy in Latin America. Most countries in the region were going through economic liberalization and privatization processes that, according to official statistics, were increasing per capita incomes. And yet, in my travels through the region I observed that macroeconomic reforms by themselves were far from sufficient in inner cities and ghettoes.

My first impulse was simply to help the poor in Latin America with money: street children, orphans, single mothers, and people leaving the countryside in search of better opportunities in the cities. I asked a colleague to travel to Mexico City and Rio de Janeiro to conduct a survey. She returned with a sobering conclusion: "Problems of this magnitude can never be solved with money ... not even with all your money. You might help some people lead an easier and more dignified life, but most people will remain poor. And the number of poor people will continue to increase."

It was obvious that traditional philanthropy was not the option I was looking for. I needed to find a catalyst that would trigger the type of sustainable human development that all governments of the world had agreed upon at the Earth Summit.

My next idea was an entrepreneurial solution. For me, a good entrepreneur is someone who consistently develops his business with a clear vision and an equally clear mission, works very hard, and has a special ability to efficiently administer the capital, the resources, and the technology available. An entrepreneur is someone capable of persuading others to adopt their own vision, of motivating them to achieve her goals. However, the entrepreneur I now imagined would not have to build large companies but rather bring about positive social change that would afford as many people as possible the opportunity to lead decent, dignified, and productive lives and to change the regional economic situation.

During a transatlantic flight, I read a magazine article about an organization called Ashoka. This organization raised funds and financed ‘social entrepreneurs’. So, I had not invented anything new, after all. My idea already existed. Through ‘talent scouting’ and interviews, Ashoka discovers individuals with entrepreneurial spirit and innovative ideas for improving society. Those who are selected receive financial assistance during a period of three years to build up their own organizations and be free to implement and disseminate their vision.

Ashoka believes that the business entrepreneur and the social entrepreneur are cut from the same cloth, as they share the same skills and work in similar fashions. It is only their goals that are different. I liked this concept because it was based on the entrepreneurial spirit that I also believe in. We thus started a long-term joint venture. This meant that I became Ashoka's partner, supporting the organization with my capital and my contacts to help it expand in Latin America, where so far it had been present only in Mexico and Brazil. Ashoka was already functioning well at the time, and since then it has continued to develop and has helped hundreds of social entrepreneurs implement their projects and their careers.

The success of Ashoka's social entrepreneurs proved to me that heads of governments and captains of industry -- those who actually should be the first responsible for improving their societies -- seldom bring about significant changes. The secret lies in searching for individuals with leadership abilities, not only among the so-called elites, but in all sectors of society in order to jointly develop a network.

I was certain that without leaders there would never be decisive changes. Leaders have long-term vision, concrete ideas for realizing that vision, and strong moral values to support it. They also have a plan of action and the ability to successfully see their projects through. In addition, they can motivate others to join them in new ventures, thus creating the necessary critical mass to implement the process of change.

The birth of AVINA

With these thoughts in mind, I began to think seriously about how I could undertake a new initiative with a substantial part of my assets and my personal commitment. I wanted to support Latin American leaders in their efforts to implement sustainable development projects.

I then thought of creating an organization, AVINA. Its goal would be to establish partnerships in Latin America with individuals in society and business imbued with the pioneering spirit, and support them in their initiatives in favor of sustainable development. I was especially interested in initiatives committed to equal opportunities, democratic processes, education, training programs, nature preservation, and eco-efficiency.

Several reasons led me to concentrate AVINA's commitment in Latin America. My business group had been operating in the region for several decades. I felt that Latin America had an enormous potential. And I have personal ties to the countries of the region. There exists, moreover, a historic relation between Latin America and Europe, reflected in the cultural traditions and many facets of the daily life of their peoples. However, the simplest reasons are that I like the region very much and get along well with the people.

Latin America is a huge continent, home to 450 million people. Until recently, many countries in the region were ruled by dictators or unstable regimes that, as a rule, generated economic and social chaos. Today, democracy is gradually gaining the upper hand, and people are beginning to organize themselves and move into those areas where governments have failed. This entails an enormous opportunity.

I then tried to work simultaneously in two activities that are usually done by different kinds of people. On the one hand, I wished to remain active in business and increase my companies' yields. On the other hand, I wanted to support social change. Both activities had to be based on the same vision and the same values. I also wanted to apply the same tools and professional standards to optimize creativity, effectiveness, and efficiency.

By 1994, we stood ready to make AVINA a reality. Latin America was experiencing a true development boom at the time. I asked myself whether my efforts to promote development would make sense in this context. I came to the conclusion that indeed it would be more meaningful than ever. As an investor, a citizen, and a human being, I had witnessed mistakes being made over and over again. As a result of these mistakes, we had not been able to take advantage of much of this development, which, in addition, had not been sustainable.

The two most frequent mistakes were that only a small part of the population was enabled to benefit from the progress achieved, and that a substantial portion of economic growth had been attained by selling or destroying natural resources. In view of the situation then existing in most Latin American countries, my contribution to development would be to foster changes that only society itself could generate. This, in turn, implied the need to find the right leaders, whose numbers were growing steadily. What they do is quite impressive: with very little outside help, they often have to go against powerful entrenched groups bent on defending their privileges and resisting change.

My challenge was then to find those leaders through AVINA and, becoming a reliable partner, help them be more effective and efficient. Finding other entrepreneurs, generous sponsors, and wealthy Latin Americans to cooperate with us was and continues to be the next challenge.

My core idea is that a modern foundation must be inspired by the entrepreneurial spirit. It has to learn to use the tools that have proved successful in business to be as efficient as possible and optimize its investments.

How AVINA works

Since its inception, AVINA has learned a great deal and constantly adapted and improved itself. It’s vision is to seek a prosperous, integrated, and democratic Latin America, inspired in its diversity, built in solidarity by its citizens, and known globally for its own model of sustainable and inclusive development.

AVINA’s main focus is Conservation and Management of Natural Resources, Sustainable Economic Development, Democratic Governance and the Rule of Law, and Equity of Opportunities.

To achieve this, AVINA identifies the best opportunities with leaders from civil society and the business sector and invests in shared initiatives promoting sustainable development in Latin America. It supports these leaders to build partnerships and to communicate their messages of change to a larger audience. Probably the term invest best reflects our changed paradigm. Traditional foundations make donations: they grant money to finance a given project and expect reports on how that money has been spent. As a rule, little is done to evaluate the results achieved. Has anything changed? Has anything improved? If so, what and how? To invest implies that we expect some type of return, essentially high dividends for society and the environment. It also implies that we expect to be able to help determine the nature of that return.

AVINA’s leaders promote democratic processes, the rational use of natural resources, training and education programs, access to the job market, eco-efficiency, corporate social responsibility, small and medium-sized businesses, and the consolidation of civil society organizations. As a joint venture, AVINA shares with its partners the experience in establishing attainable goals and clearly defining projects. AVINA offers them business know-how in the areas of organizational management and efficiency, and provides them with access to individuals and organizations working on similar projects worldwide.

Before the advent of the Internet, it made sense for foundations to have central administrations that would convey the institutions’ goals and mission to their employees. Today, however, the Internet allows us full decentralization, and headquarters are no longer absolutely necessary. Most of our employees now work close to where projects are implemented and are much more involved in field activities than they would f they were sitting in distant offices.

AVINA representatives are located in various cities in Latin-America. They hail from and live in the region. One of their tasks is to identify and support the most suitable leaders to become our partners and try to ascertain that they share our same values and long-term vision. In the course of this process, each leader determines whether the services and resources that AVINA could provide would be useful to him. We, in turn, check to see if that leader’s activities fit into our ‘portfolio’. AVINA ensures that all leaders working in the same region or in related thematic areas have the opportunity to meet, as we are convinced that exchange and mutual learning processes afford great advantages and synergies to all involved.