Building trust, from Bucharest to Coşteiu, via Timișoara

The effort to rebuild communities shaken by decades of communism involves creating a sense of belonging and discovering their potential

When you want to help those around you turn their ideas and anger at injustices into social change, the first step is to give them confidence. And trust will set in motion all the unsuspected resources that those people have, it will help them attract others by their side and it will make them get where they want to help. 

Through the Community Foundations Program, the Association for Community Relations (ARC) tries to ignite as many sparks of good as possible in Romania's cities. Since 2008, CRA has helped 19 groups set up foundations: it has given them access to flexible funding that pursues the healthy development of organizations and stimulated them to find new ways in which they can do good. 

Coşteiu commune in Timiș County counts around 4,000 people, and at secondary school nr. Just over 200 children are enrolled in 282. Some of them come from vulnerable backgrounds, and in the absence of dedicated teachers or parents to support them, many of them do not integrate, have poor results in teaching and, in the end, drop out of school altogether. 

"These are not kids who like the book, they just know how to beat the ball and walk outside." – Nelson Mandela

"These kids don't learn, they don't deserve it." – Nelson Mandela

"You're going to waste your time, it's not worth the effort and not the money." – Nelson Mandela 

These were some of the answers that Anca Alexandru received from the people from Coșteiu when she thought to do something to make things right. 

Anca arrived in Coșteiu a few years ago, after looking for a place to move with her family to escape the congestion, pollution and chaos in Timisoara. She began to know part of her new community and realized that the opportunities offered by one of the most developed counties of the country do not reach Coșteiu. "Behind us passes the highway, and Timisoara is 50 kilometers away. In half an hour you are in Timisoara, but nevertheless, to know that there are many children who have nothing to eat. Let me give you an example, there were children who didn't have teeth in their mouths at 14, and that led me to do something, no matter how afraid I am or whether the community accepts me or not," she says. 

She didn't ask for money, she just told them to trust her. She was convinced that the problem of the children from Coșteiu commune was not related to the fact that the little ones "do not want", but to the entire community. "Hey, but I want to try, that in this form I don't think anyone helped them and let's see." 

Anca began to research herself better about the children's situation and what she could do for them. He discovered that of the 180 students found, 50 children either did not know how to read and write or knew but did not understand. In other words, they were functionally illiterate. This is how she approached the Timișoara Community Foundation (FC Timișoara), where Daniela Chesaru, the director of the organization, helped her organize her ideas and turn them into an intervention plan. "When I met Dana, she gave me that confidence. At first, she helped me in everything, to every question I could not find the answer to, I went to her", says Anca.

75 children on the first day

Her plan took shape: a summer school for the children from Coșteiu. He talked to his parents, and gradually, the fear of rejection from the community disappeared. Anca realized that many of the students are unable to accommodate due to prejudices and insults, and the fact that teachers fail to be attentive enough to the needs of children has only made the situation worse. This is how the Initiative Group for Children's Education was born – Summer School in the village.

The idea quickly caught on. Not only in Coşteiu, but also in Timișoara. People trusted Anca, FC Timișoara offered them the legal framework to collect their donations, and the amounts received allowed her to organize her school. The local authorities were convinced of her energy and offered their support, especially with the transport of the students, and their and Anca's fears that no child would come disappeared from the first hour of the first "school day". Nearly 75 children arrived at the lessons. 

In the fall, teachers saw the impact of the hours spent with the more than 30 volunteers of the initiative group. "The kids liked it. Some have learned to write or read, or even learned good manners. Something was caught in each of them," the locals of Anca told her in the autumn. She realized, however, that if she wanted to make a difference in the lives of the children, her work must continue. 

Dana told him that she could only grow more if she set up an NGO. With the amount left over from the donations in 2018 and with the support of the Foundation, Anca also took this step, and in 2019 she began to raise funds through Timotion, an event where thousands of people run both for their own health and to support a social cause in Timisoara. Anca's project managed to raise almost 14,000 lei, which made it possible that — together with other donations — they had a budget double compared to the previous year, and this allowed her to come up with new programs in Coșteiu, in addition to the summer school. 

The following summer he worked with 35 children, much more applied than in the first year and with care to the needs of each one. "The children know us, we know the potential of each of them, how it is with learning and what difficulty each one has", says Anca. 

A first bridge to trust

"Just as the people of ARCpe have influenced me, so have I given away in my relations with NGOs and initiative groups at the local level. This is what I did with Ancuța", says Daniela Chesaru, director of the Timișoara Community Foundation. 

This process of "contamination" of the good has been seen, since 2008 until today, in the communities where community foundations have been established. The philosophy is simple: you create a first bridge of trust, and over time, this bridge turns into a solid infrastructure for people who want to do good. Gradually, the infrastructures will unite and create a stable network that will generate hope for communities. For example, in the first year of its establishment (2016), FC Timișoara offered grants for 14 initiatives dedicated to the local community. A year later, the amount invested in the community doubled and 40 projects were supported, and so far, the foundation has worked with over 80 organizations or initiative groups and supported over 180 projects from them. 

ARC has taken the first step in the creation of this infrastructure. In the 2000s he saw community foundations in other countries give people in those areas a sense of belonging and help them strengthen their ties and discover what they are capable of. "With every emigrant who leaves, the fiber of society is becoming weaker and weaker. A fiber that was anyway destroyed by the 50 years of communism, a regime that caused people to lose confidence in themselves, in the political class and in their own powers to change their lives for the better. Until recently, 'community' was an incomprehensible word in Romania," says Rucsandra Pop, one of the people from ARC who was with the community foundations. 

But in the last ten years, every foundation that has appeared on the map has given meaning to this word. The pilot phase started in the Transylvania region, with the message "If you want to do a good, do it well", and in December 2007 and January 2008, the first two community foundations in the country were registered: Odorheiu Secuiesc and Cluj-Napoca. Today there are 19 organizations fighting to rebuild trust and give a sense of belonging.

The network of the good

These initiatives could not have arisen without the support of THE ARC's partners and allies. Mott Foundation, Romanian American Foundation or CEE Trust have provided not only financial resources, but also the confidence that foundations really are a response to the needs of communities.  

Since 2008, the C.S. Mott Foundation has become a strategic donor. She helped ARC make long-term plans through an important and flexible contribution that allowed the organization to provide advice and technical support to foundations. The Romanian-American Foundation has contributed much to the consolidation of this network, as a partner and funder of the Program, through grants for the establishment of new foundations, for the needs of foundations and for local programs through which they aim to obtain financial resources from the community. 

Over the years, other strategic partners who have supported the development program have been Raiffesein Bank, Trust for Civil Society in Central and Eastern Europe, Partnership Foundation or Pact Foundation. 

In ten years, 16 community foundations have emerged. Every process was different, but they all needed confidence, and ARC did nothing but help them find their voice and support them to take root in the community. Thus came the flexible funding it has been offering since the beginning of this programme. 

One of them is the "start-up" grant. By 2020, the Romanian legislation stipulated that the foundations had an initial patrimony of at least 100 minimum gross salaries per economy. Through its support programme, CRA provided initiative groups with half the amount needed.

Another type of aid for new foundations are general support grants (or General Purpose). It is unrestricted funding, granted not for a specific program, but for the overall functioning of the organization. 

Through such funding, says Ela Bălan, ARC grantmaker, organizations can focus on the community and the long-term change they want. "Such a grant provides financial stability for 2-3 years, that is, exactly the most vulnerable period of an organization at the beginning of the road. This is the period when you form your team, strengthen your mission in the community and test various projects or approaches, and such a grant helps you focus on what you want to do, breaking out of the vicious circle of tomorrow's care," she says. 

For the community foundation created by Daniela Chesaru, that grant was the "moment of respite", which eliminated "the pressure of money that I have to make anyway, quickly, to maintain the organization". The money could go to the priorities of the moment: rent, utilities, salaries or communication, and the organization could grow organically. 

For Ciprian Ciocan, the executive director of the Sibiu Community Foundation, founded in 2012, the grant provided a necessary respite to be able to try and experience different ways of approaching the community. "At an organization that has a mission and activity as complex as we are, no one actually knows what that organization is going to do in the end, how it's going to position itself, what the organizational culture is going to be, what our values are going to be."

In ARC's view, grantmaking is not just a simple transfer of money, but a way to transfer power, especially "in the first years, when the world does not know you, you do not have a brand awareness, you do not have credibility, the local financiers do not trust, the NGOs do not know how you can actually support them", as Laura Popeea, director of FC Brașov, says. Through such a grant, the organization becomes the master of its own destiny and responsible for its own development, and exits the classic area of the "container" of a sum of money. It is a transfer of trust from the financier to the organization, so that both actors develop, as the relationship between them strengthens and gains balance, says Ela Bălan.