Across Latin America, thousands of local, grassroots, peasant, and Indigenous organizations continue to be excluded from major philanthropic initiatives and international funding. Underlying causes include racism, classism, the rural–urban divide, and internal and subregional colonialism, among other factors. In this webinar, Red Comunidades Rurales (member of the Alianza de Fondos del Sur), Fondo Emerger (member of the Alianza de Fondos del Sur), and Instituto Procomum (member of Rede Comuá and the Alianza Territorial) will share their experiences developing collaborative, participatory, and community-based responses to challenge systemic racism, colonialism, and discrimination in philanthropy.

We will address topics such as:

• Structural discrimination in access to international cooperation resources for local organizations, rural communities, peasant families, and Indigenous peoples;

• Alternative philanthropic experiences and practices, such as participatory grantmaking platforms, community savings groups, and alternative methodologies for grant application and evaluation;

• Resource decentralization, the valuing of community knowledge, and trust-based shared governance;

• Strengthening capacities within communities so that organizations can identify their own resources, and enhance their resilience to the barriers imposed by the international cooperation system.
  
  

Speakers

Facundo Ibarlucía – Coordinator of Information and Knowledge Management, Red Comunidades Rurales / Alianza de Fondos del Sur

Political scientist specialized in technology service management and the design, monitoring, and evaluation of socio-environmental projects. Since 2012, he has worked with Red Comunidades Rurales and the Global Environment Facility (GEF), where he served as Director of the Rural Community Project Bank and Coordinator of the Research and Knowledge Management Area. He has led learning communities and provided consulting for UNDP's Small Grants Programme (SGP). He has worked on initiatives such as Force for Good (JP Morgan), Resource Mapping (Telecom), and rural development surveys.

Laura V. Flórez – Head of Programs, Fondo Emerger / Alianza de Fondos del Sur

Laura serves as Head of Programs at Fondo Emerger. There, she supports grassroots organizations and collectives in the application process through open calls and coordinates the proposal evaluation and selection processes. She focuses on reducing gaps between communities and donors and developing tools to highlight the local resources held by the planet’s guardians. Throughout her career, Laura has focused on reducing inequalities in access to external resources and uplifting local resources in grassroots collectives and organizations, through social entrepreneurship and support for socio-environmental initiatives.

Fabrício Freitas – Instituto Procomum / Rede Comuá and Alianza Territorial

Fabrício Freitas is a non-binary Afro-Brazilian administrator, cultural producer, artist, and activist. They currently serve as Director of Resources at Instituto Procomum, a social organization based in the Baixada Santista region (São Paulo coast – Brazil) that works at the intersection of culture, citizen innovation, climate justice, solidarity economy, and care as a political and methodological axis. Fabrício also represents Instituto Procomum in Rede Comuá and the Alianza Territorial, where they help advance strategies for resource redistribution, community network strengthening, and collaborative territorial practices. They will share the experience of the Alianza Territorial, a coalition of seven Rede Comuá organizations — Casa Fluminense, FunBEA, Instituto Comunitário Baixada Maranhense, ICOM, Instituto Procomum, Redes da Maré, and Tabôa Fortalecimento Comunitário.

Moderator: Mara Tissera Luna, Content Advisor at KujaLearn

Date and Time: June 25, 2025

• Mexico City / Guatemala City – 10:00 AM

• New York, USA – 12:00 PM

• Buenos Aires / Rio de Janeiro – 1:00 PM

• London, UK – 4:00 PM

• Geneva / Madrid – 5:00 PM

• Cape Town, South Africa – 6:00 PM

• Nairobi, Kenya – 7:00 PM

• Delhi, India – 10:00 PM
  
  

Duration: 1 hour and 15 minutes. Language: Spanish, with simultaneous interpretation in English and French.