NOSSAS

For the past 9 years, I have led an organization that has created meaningful change on a wide range of issues, and have found that there is often a tension between leading a community and building a personal profile. As a result, I have actively tried to fight the temptation of prioritizing my own public image in detriment of my commitment to the field. However, I now realize I may have hidden myself too much: I am absent from all social media platforms, often decline interview requests, and even though I have been granted a number of high-profile speaking opportunities (including at TED Global, Zeitgeist, etc), I have refrained from building an audience of out them. This has stifled some of the impact I may have otherwise had: I have not used my personal success story to inspire others. The Elevate Prize interested me because of its commitment to helping social entrepreneurs publicly articulate their stories while honoring the collective effort involved in them. My hope is to use the resources offered to both lift up the work of my organization and finally come out of my shell as a public figure in an authentic and powerful way.

I am a 32-year-old Brazilian activist, and mother to a 2-year-old girl. I have been working on the social impact sector since the beginning of my career. Aside from leading NOSSAS, the organization that catalyzes solidarity and democracy-based activism in Brazil, I am also a writer, director and the showrunner at the country’s only comedy-news show.  I am driven by a desire to see my country develop and thrive in a way that is equitable and fair.  I envision a world in which power is more evenly distributed, and citizens not only feel important, but actually are at the center of policy-making. I believe in a future where everyday’s problems will be solved primarily through community-based action, not private or individual solutions. I see a country where everyone is an activist, an organizer, and a fully engaged political actor who in turn fully respects and trusts citizens who may have different opinions and views on the nation’s priorities - with democracy itself never being called into question or being dragged into the wargames of political polarization.

NOSSAS addresses the erosion of democracy in Brazil by supporting citizens in their quest to influence policy-making and be included in decisions that affect them.  Our main goal is to build a democratic society - as opposed to relying solely on democratic institutions. We give people multiple ways to organize, advocate for causes that are relevant to their communities, and have a clear impact on policy. This in turn engages them fully in a democratic society, offering  direct counterweight to feelings of political alienation and disenfranchisement. We wish to regain the people’s trust in democracy itself - not just elections but also the everyday work of elected officials, public servants, and even the press. That will not be achieved by pretending that these actors always get it right - rather, it requires a citizenry that is organized and able to apply pressure on decision-makers, albeit through a pro-democracy, non-antagonistic lens. We help that new, empowered, democracy-loving citizenry emerge by giving millions of citizens a way to embark upon their activist journey: either by joining a campaign or by being trained to become community leaders, by using our technology or by leveraging our incubations team to create a new activist organization.

Our youth-led tech-savvy team is known for developing solutions that merge innovative technology and traditional strategies such as strategic litigation and advocacy. We offer tools and methodologies to individuals and groups to do their part and fight for equality, justice, democratic institutions and practices, and make sure leaders are accountable to their citizens. We offer to our constituency and partners platforms we develop in-house and roadmaps on how to combine and customize existing platforms, social networks and messaging apps. NOSSAS's experience and expertise is put to use in service of activists that wish to spearhead social change: issue-specific organizations benefit from the solutions we develop to produce and share knowledge, create narratives that challenge strongman politics, secure credibility for mobilization and advocacy efforts, transcend cause-based niches, and test contemporary ways to match online and offline tactics to achieve great results. We are very attuned to the busy, rapidly moving news cycle. We seize on the public’s attention and connect it to the structurally important issues that underlie specific events. We look forward to leveraging actual popular support around causes, attaching increased political capital to them, often very quickly.

In the past 5-10 years, citizens worldwide started lending their support to authoritarian “outsiders'' like Orban, Modi, Bolsonaro, and Donald Trump. They are just the first examples of a new political phenomenon: the emergence of the “platform strongmen” - a leader who inspires a loose-knit, highly decentralized movement driven by the intensity of social media support with strongman politics. So much of the efforts of the “personal democracy” movement around the world has relied upon mistrust of democractic institutions, often playing into a narrative according to which all politicians are cowards or corrupt or both, and only people power can set them straight. That has been a tremendously dangerous approach. However, taking a purely collaborative stance has not worked either: in Brazil, we have numerous examples of social movements that were rendered toothless during the Workers Party government precisely for that reason. We believe that it is possible to create positive tension between citizens and institutions: one that positions people as custodians of democratic values. That is, at its core, the meaning of the work that we do. If we succeed, we will have created a blueprint for rescuing democracy from erosion, something that other countries and societies may benefit from.

There are two kinds of beneficiaries of NOSSAS’ work. First, those who directly partake in one of the organization’s activities, be it receiving opportunities for engagement, getting trained on methodologies for activism or as beneficiaries of solidarity networks created by NOSSAS, such as Defezap or Mapa do Acolhimento.  Second, those indirectly impacted by the changes in public policy that the organization advocates for.

In terms of direct beneficiaries, up to 2021, NOSSAS has trained over 1,000 individuals, assisted almost 6,000 survivors of gender-based violence, helped over 200 victims of police brutality,  and engaged almost 3 million citizens, making NOSSAS the largest member-base Brazilian organization. We estimate that over the next year 2,000 people will access capacity building opportunities, 10,000 will receive services in mental health and access to justice and another 1 million individuals will engage and re-engage with impact-driven campaigns.

NOSSAS has a dedicated data team, as well as internal processes to ensure that progress is measured closely. Our impact goals are typically measured either in terms of people engaged (including people we train) and/or policy our public service changes achieved. Up-to-date numbers can be found here.

 As a multi-cause organization, our initiatives are linked to various of the UN SDGs, most notably gender equality; sustainable cities; and peace, justice and strong institutions. In the next 12 months, our most important impact goals are:

• Presenting a “popular demand” bill (which must be signed by at least 3% of the electorate in all States) to Congress with strong provisions for protecting the Amazon and bringing sustainable development opportunities to its people.

• Working with public servants at all levels of government to significantly improve the availability of mental health services available to survivors of gender-based violence in all Brazilian states.

• Getting at least 500k young voters (16 to 18 year-olds) to register to vote in the 2022 presidential election.

• Training and mentoring 100+ young climate activists across Brazil.

• Increasing our current client base for our tech platform by 150%, distributing our powerful tools to peers  while expanding our self-generated revenue streams.

I believe that the single most important barrier to us achieving our goals in the next year is the deterioration of the democractic space in Brazil and increased political polarization, which hinders our ability to build broad coalitions to advocate for common citizens’ interests across the political spectrum. This is why I think winning the Elevate Prize would be particularly strategic for us: through the prize’s focus on communications and narrative building, I hope to that NOSSAS and myself will be able to rise above the noise purposefully created by polarize politics to most effectively advocate for citizens who need it most.

NOSSAS is already all about mass communications and building audiences for different causes, but its brand itself remains quite underdeveloped. I hope Elevate will help us change that by aiding us in creating a unified story about NOSSAS as a whole - a story of citizens working together to tackle seemingly intractable problems as diverse as police brutality, domestic violence, and the climate crisis. I also hope Elevate will help me develop a personal brand for myself as a social entrepreneur - something that I purposefully did not want to do for many years, but that I know recognized may be hindering my ability to inspire others in Brazil - in particular young women - to partake in our civic life and leverage their voices and abilities to advocate for the country they want to see. At the end of the day, if NOSSAS wants to remain a catalyst for activism and civic engagement in the country and region, it will have to inspire decentralized leadership from others, not just do the work directly. That ability to inspire by example may very well be key to the organization having the most impact at the biggest scale it can possibly achieve.

NOSSAS has a young, dynamic and diverse staff, and a compassionate work culture. At NOSSAS, we believe that our greatest strengths come from the people who make up our team. Thus, inclusion and diversity is ingrained in our culture and we ongoingly look for ways to infuse diversity in our workplace. We foster collaborative work processes through workgroups, as well as task-forces to launch campaigns on urgent matters. All staff members are invited to directly contribute to the organization's strategy. NOSSAS's concern with diversity and representativeness led the organization to establish  internal procedures and hiring policies focusing on gender, racial and geographical diversity. Today, the staff is composed of 55% non-white people. Moreover, our collaborators are now based in 15 cities located in 4 regions (35% of them in the North, Northeast and South regions), and 80% of our employees are female. Racial and geographical diversity enhance NOSSAS's ability to better reflect the Brazilian population and channel the voices of citizens from different backgrounds across the country. Besides, the organization has a highly qualified advisory board, whose members work closely to NOSSAS’ leadership and regularly challenge it to further embrace equity internally and externally.

I am a young woman from Rio, and I have grown up witnessing first-hand the city’s profound inequalities. My mother comes from a wealthy background. My father comes from a working-class family and he lost his father very young. My childhood was marked by the experience of these two worlds and the impact inequality has on people’s everyday lives. This life history makes me uniquely positioned to be a leader in my field, and I strive to build a leadership team at NOSSAS that values both excellence and a wealth of different perspectives. Currently, that team has 9 members, from which 7 are are women and 4 are non-white. Our work experiences are varied: my COO worked in the publishing industry in France before settling back in Rio, my deputy director has lived in Tokyo, Capetown and New York before returning to Brazil to join the country’s biggest news channel, my director of campaigns has 9 years of experience in community organizing, my head of technology is a self-taught hacker who actively participates in the Brazilian open-source community, and my head of strategy is a well-known feminist activist. Together, they make a powerful, diverse and creative team of leaders.

In 2020, NOSSAS was faced with the challenge of both adapting to and responding to the pandemic. One of our most important projects, Mapa do Acolhimento - which offers mental health and legal services to survivors of gender-based violence - faced a significant surge in demand. Our campaigning team was overwhelmed by requests from our grassroots partners who were witnessing the economic hardship immediately felt in their communities. And many of our staff were facing issues  of their own.

My leadership team and I worked tirelessly to address these challenges. First, we instituted new internal policies including remote work, reduced schedules for those with small children, extended sick leave, and psychotherapy subsidies for staff. Second, we took a chance and decided to hire up, even with the difficulties involved in recruiting and training a new team online. We tossed our annual plan entirely and decided to run a series of massive crowdfunding campaigns to help our partners in need, raising millions of dollars. And we led a coalition of 100+ organizations that advocated for immediate basic income for the bottom half of the Brazilian population - a policy was approved by Congress in April 2020.

- TED talk
- Zeitgeist
- Conversa com Bial 
- Canal Futura 

A big part of NOSSAS’ impact goals for the next 12 months requires large-scale coalition-building to drive systems change at a massive scale. They also require a strong presence in all Brazilian states. This presence is not merely digital: a “popular demand” bill, for instance, requires physical signatures from 1.5 million + constituents in all states. So does the creation of better services for survivors of gender-based violence. Elevate funding would help us resource these very ambitious strategies. NOSSAS is not underfunded: it has enough in reserves and contracts to sustain its strategy for the next period, but it could ramp up its level of ambition significantly if more resources were available.

NOSSAS aims at channeling collective power to push for social change or oppose setbacks and backlashes. To fulfill this mission, we are constantly in dialogue with various change agents. Amongst our many strategic partners are both governmental and non-state actors. We engage with all government branches at all state levels and from all political spectrum - as long as they are open to dialogue and committed to human rights and democratic values. We also partner with NGOs, Brazilian and foreign donors, community organizers, grassroots groups, highly influential media outlets in Brazil and abroad, multilateral organizations, and other stakeholders committed to promoting and enabling change. We strongly believe we must engage citizens (and turn them into activists). Therefore, we work hard to reach all right holders and make sure they see themselves as stakeholders. In particular, we try to engage with women, peri-urban youths, and indigenous and black communities. We invest resources so that staff members can creatively map a moving and intertwined landscape of potential partners so NOSSAS can better reach its goals.