We are working to promote community development in the second phase of Comunidades Activas

Monterrey, NL, Tuesday, July 21, 2021. With the goal of promoting the economic and social recovery of communities through a grassroots development approach, Comunalia, in collaboration with the Inter-American Foundation and the Mott Foundation, launched the second phase of the Active Communities Fund in nine states across the country.

For this phase, an investment of at least $255,000 is estimated, which will be allocated to approximately 50 projects in the communities where the 10 participating partner foundations of the alliance are located. These foundations will develop initiatives or issue calls for proposals for civil society organizations and grassroots groups between July 2021 and July 2022.

The Active Communities Fund emphasizes the local development component and the role that the community plays in decision-making and project implementation—that is, in grassroots development—while also fulfilling the objective of economic and social recovery for communities affected by the health emergency.

Thus, the second phase of the Active Communities Fund aims to ensure that projects enhance participants’ collective capacity to identify, understand, and address the issues they themselves consider important; that community members commit to and actively participate in finding solutions; and that they can continue taking action even after their participation in the Fund has ended.

Projects must focus on children, youth, adults, and older adults who have been affected by the economic and social crisis resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic in the country. In addition, projects must address a goal related to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) within the framework of the UN 2030 Agenda.

Participating in the second phase of the Active Communities Fund are Corporativa de Fundaciones in Jalisco; Amigos de San Cristóbal in Chiapas; Fundación Merced Querétaro in Querétaro; Fundación Merced Coahuila in Coahuila; Fundación Comunidad in Morelos; Fundación del Empresariado Sonorense (FESAC) in Sonora; Fundación del Empresariado Chihuahuense (FECHAC) and Fundación Comunitaria de la Frontera Norte in Chihuahua; Fundación Punta de Mita in Nayarit; Fundación Comunitaria Oaxaca in Oaxaca; and Fundación Comunitaria Cozumel in Quintana Roo.

During the first phase of the Active Communities Fund—a partnership between Comunalia and the Coca-Cola Foundation—between June 2020 and June 2021, more than $120 million pesos were mobilized for 42 projects supporting economic and social recovery in 15 states, with an investment of $12 million from the Coca-Cola Foundation, $84 million mobilized by the participating community foundations, and a matching contribution of nearly $3.6 million pesos from each of the CSOs or grassroots groups for their own local projects.