Interviews

INTERVIEW WITH GERALDO JORDÃO PEREIRA


Ex President and Adviser of Instituto Rio

IR: When was it that the entrepreneur, Geraldo Jordão, was awaken to social matters?
GJ: I am both a publisher and a sociologist. I graduated at the age of 19, but with 17, I already was working at my father’s – José Olympio – publishing house. It was at the age of 40 that I got engaged in social projects. I remember, particularly, that as Director of the Botanic Garden I noticed that the old gardner’s knowledge was being wasted. So I proposed an agreement with FUNABEM (National Foundation for the Wellbeing of the Minors), and the boys, who had to fulfil social-educational measures started to take gardening classes all of them got jobs because of the classes they took. That’s how I got started.

IR: And how did you get to Casa de Santa Ana and Instituto São Cipriano, the two institutions that you have been supporting for more than 10 years?
GJ: A friend introduced me to a “shaman woman” called Marlicene Figueiredo, that was extremely worried about the dangerous situation in which the girls of three different favelas of the Campo Grande area lived in. When I asked her what she would like to do about it, she answered that it would be to teach the girls as least one profession. So we built , on top of Marlicene’s Ubanda Temple, two floors with many workshops: The Instituto São Cipriano. We started with eight girls, and have already graduated 400 each year. Casa de Santa Ana, in the favela Cidade de Deus – City of God – came later. Maria de Lourdes was a social worker that was developing a project with the elderly in a very small house, and we decided to build a three-storied house where today many therapeutic and recreative activities take place.

IR: And how did you know of Instituto Rio and closed the deal of the partnership?
GJ: For many years I have been a friend of Peggy Dulany’s, President of Sinergos. It came to my knowledge that Synergos had created Instituto Rio in Brazil to do some social projects in the West Zone, a region that I Knew well because of my experience with Instituto São Cipriano and Casa de Santa Ana. After that, the Presidente of Instituto Rio, Cindy Lessa, invited me to be a member of the board.

IR: You created the first Trust-Fund and that is the great philosophy of Instituto Rio as a Community Foundation.
GJ: Recently I had a great success with the Da Vinci Code, and other books that followed. This gave me the resources to create this Trust-Fund, something that’s not known in Brasil. In the United States, it’s called by trust-fund, and it means that one has to allocate a reasonable amount of resources to have a profitability capable of supporting projects.

IR: This trust is also an example and a guarantee to other business people?
GJ: One of the reasons that made me create the Vera Pacheco Jordão Fund was give the example, to show to other business people and entrepreneurs that it’s possible to take a part in an innovative project, and how to do it. A lot of people want to collaborate but don’t know how, or uspect that the money won’t be well invested.

IR: Anyone can make a donation to an existing fund, or create his/her own fund…
GJ: Yes, The donor can create his own fund, be it in his name, in someone else’s name, or in the name of a company, and choose the managers of his/her Trust-Fund. The donor can also indicate the institutions must be supported and feel completely safe that the money will be well managed and/or invested by Instituto Rio.

INTERVIEW WITH CINDY LESSA


President of Instituto Rio

IR: What exactly is a Community Foundation?
CL: It’s a specific model of Foundation that provides sustainable resources to a certain community. This kind of Foundation started in the United States in 1914. There are 700 of this kind now in the U.S. and another 100 in Canada. This idea is spreading in Europe. In Mexico there are 20 community foundations and there are efforts being made to get some in Africa, Asia and Australia.

IR: Why the West Zone of Rio de Janeiro?
CL: A Community Foundation requires the limitation of an easy to handle geographical area. The more limited the region, the more you can respond to the identified specific needs. The West Zone of Rio is one of the city’s poorest zones, with deficiencies in the social infra-structure. It has many basic organizations, but they don’t receive adequate support.

IR: What is your expectation with regarding the pioneerism of Instituto Rio, which is the first community foundation of Brazil?
CL: To keep working in order to create Permanent Funds bearing in mind the improvement of the quality of life of the West Zone of Rio de Janeiro. We work to prove the relevance and the viability of the Community Foundation concept in Brazil pointing to the impacts of our actions in the region we serve.

IR: What’s the counterpart for the business people that want to make a social investment through Instituto Rio?
CL: The company has two interests to consider: the first is to solve a social problem that affects its activities. The second is to show its clients and partners that it’s a conscious and socially responsible company. Instituto Rio receives and invests the resources of the business person and/or company in the community indicated by the donor and points out the impact of the investment done.

IR: Wht’s the Permanent Fund?
CL: The Permanent Fund, also called trust-fund, is the change of paradigm of the Community Foundation. It’s a resource that will multiply itself throughout its life and be available to the communities in a permanent way. We don’t want to put out fires, but to create a network of firemen able to put out any fire with ease. The Permanent Fund is constituted of resources that are manged in a responsible way by trustworthy financial institutions. From this Fund comes out the resources to be invested in social projects.

IR: How is the selection of projects made?
CL: The selection is made by a technical team with the help of consultants. Organizations and projects in the West Zone are prospected and evaluated in different aspects. The organization requesting the support of Instituto Rio needs to show the ability to absorb and manage the resource. The Community Foundation distributes resources. It offers capacitation courses so that the organizations can learn how to handle their own capital.

IR: What are Cindy Lessa perspectives, as the President of Instituto Rio?
CL: We already have 20 supported projects, and we have 40 leaderships capacitated in the West Zone of Rio de Janeiro. We have created with this a network of participants in
the social area of that region. We have created in 2005, the first trust-fund with a generous donation made by Geraldo Jordão Pereira, and we have great perspectives of investments to be made by companies, business people, individuals and other Foundations.