Civil Society Resource Organization

Background

PENABULU CSRO (Civil Society Resource Mobilization) is one of the five Directorates under Penabulu Foundation (the other four Directorates are: Grant Management, Implementation Network, Research Institute and Disaster Response), which was officially authorized on January 27, 2023 based on notarial deed No. 26 by Kokoh Henry, SH, MKn, a notary in Jakarta. Penabulu Foundation is a non-profit foundation, dedicated to the empowerment of civil society in Indonesia.

Penabulu Foundation was established in Jakarta since 2002, based on notarial deed No. 1 on October 22, 2003 arranged by Rita Riana Hutapea, SH, which has been confirmed by the decree of the Ministry of Law and Human Rights No. C-435 HT. 01.02.TH 2004, dated August 5, 2004.

The Civil Society Resource Organization (CSRO) Unit was most recently formed by the Penabulu Foundation with the aim of aligning and linking all program and project interventions implemented by other Penabulu implementing units within the framework of managing organizational resources as a collective asset to be distributed, exchanged and remodified/produced for all elements of Indonesian civil society. At the same time, this unit will work in alliance in fighting for better enabling conditions and ecosystems for Indonesian civil society.

The structure of the Penabulu CSRO Directorate is as follows:

Director: Dini Andriani
Program Manager: Ikhwanul Huda
Finance Manager: Dwi Premadha Lestari

Program

LOKADAYA

Lokadaya is a resource network initiated by 62 CSOs from 34 provinces in Indonesia, aims as a space for sharing and learning of knowledge and good practices carried out at the site level, as well as being a facilitator that supports CSOs to mobilize domestic resources collectively.

CO-EVOLVE

Co-Evolve is a collective transformation effort supported by the EU with the aim of encouraging the sustainability of the role and contribution of Indonesian CSOs, through the development of a crowdsourcing platform, institutional capacity building, enabling policy advocacy and the development of a national resource network.

“Penabulu is a partner in implementing the project strenghtening Indonesia CSOs Capacity and Resilience in response the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s part of three years response in Indonesia. The project aims to build sustainability and resilience among no fewer than 200 CSOs in the 34 provinces of Indonesia, nation wide. The project will equiped with the necessary digital technology and it will help expand the capacity to support citizens, and expecially to strenghten and protection of the vulnerable communities.”

(Palembang, 26 February 2021)

Civil Society Resource Organization

The direction and magnitude of the future success of sustainable development will be greatly determined by how big the slices of synergy can be built collectively by the three actors of development: the government, the business sector and civil society.

The business sector will instinctively bring the interests of profit and capital growth, under the banners of basic theory of economics: the scarcity of resources, the minimum capital should get maximum returns. The government who is supposed to be guardians of the policy will tend to choose the easy path with planked instructions: ‘economic development’. Thus, civil society becomes the last remaining pillar on triangular equilibrium of sustainable development.

Development model which is being developed now, nor can trim the significantly increasing rate of poverty. Turbulences that hit: the crises on financial system, climate, energy, clean water and food and other crises (cultural crisis, integration, integrity, leadership) increase the vulnerability of the wider community. Social gap keeps being wider and deeper. Vision of shared prosperity might be even farther.

The development partnership with the civil society sector would be the one of the main possibilities for the creation of equality dialogue for find the solutions together to address the complexity problem and the real conditions that faced by the society today.

When the awareness of the role of civil society in sustainable development began to transform into an absolute needs, the existence of civil society organizations itself will leave many fundamental problems: the funding gap of long-term work, the absence of adequate capacity to be agents of development in a comprehensive manner, structural weakness and institutional support were able to put civil society as equal development partners, the lack of consolidation of joint policy advocacy at national and local level and civil society stutter interpret and prepare ‘sustainability of organization’.

Sustainability of civil society organizations can not be simply built by cultivating as much capital like the corporate sector as possible. It is not that way.

Key formulation of sustainability of civil society organizations in Indonesia should be lay on at least two strategic steps: first, how far a civil organization is able to put itself in the dynamics of environmental change that occurs quickly, and constantly pushing itself to change and find new relevance position. In order to reach that goal, civil society organizations must become a dynamic organization, cadre builders, learners and reformer. Supposedly, there will be no stability and comfort there.

Second, how far a civil society organization is able to manage and mobilize its resources. Resource mobilization should be started from its best effort to manage the resources which already owned at this time, not just focusing to look for new resources. Resources also must be considered much broader than just as ‘funding sources’. So many resources beside the funds, which almost never managed and mobilized by the modern civil society organizations: human resources (indeed, will be the biggest asset of civil society organizations), the data-information-knowledge, technology, volunteers, community, networking and participation, and public engagement.

In achievement the vision, resources are absolutely required. Loyalty of civil society organizations in maintaining the position and role of counterbalance within the framework of sustainable development will clearly depend on how large are its resources. The ‘product’ creation of knowledge and services, the development of collaborative partnerships, and involvement of the public at large will be a key of the long term resource mobilization.

In the momentum of the transformation of civil society organizations in Indonesia, which is in progress since 2010, possibly until the end of the decade ahead, Penabulu Foundation has encouraged itself to take the role as a ‘civil society resource organization. As a civil society resource organization, Penabulu will do the best to mobilize, manage and distribute resources in any form to support the work of civil society in Indonesia. Penabulu will as good as possible convert the obtained energy as efforts to strengthen, empower and guarantee the sustainability of civil society organizations throughout Indonesia. Converting all the energy into space to grow together, space to consolidate power of ideas and work of civil society in Indonesia, triggers and boosters of governance improvement for better and more sustain development of future Indonesia.

Civil Society Resources Mobilization (CSRO) is a basic conceptual that puts forward;

  1. The assessment of organizational needs and capacity as a whole including operational and strategic aspects,
  2. Capacity building based on multi-modal,
  3. Strengthening the ecosystem of Civil Society Organization (CSO),
  4. Prioritizing the M&E and impact assessment,
  5. Encouraging the growth of innovation and institutional sustanaibility as well as the financial strategies through the donor support,
  6. Capacity building plans from the beginning, and
  7. Relationships development between CSOs and donors in order to built a strong ecosystem between CSOs and its networks that part of its contingency efforts now and in the future.

Prepared with the “strategic collaboration” keyword, CSRO continues to mobilize all forms of its resources, to leverage position and role as the owners of knowledge and expertise, and as the forefront of the changes that are being pursued.

A complete study of the Civil Society Resources Mobilization (CSRO) landscape in Africa, Asia and Latin America can be found here.

© 2015 Penabulu Foundation