A gift to defend

The third sector is crucial, but fragile. We will need imagination and new ways to start again.

The periods of crisis are normally those in which, despite unexpected difficulties, the world of organized solidarity manages to surprise with its great capacity for action and adaptation to the changed conditions of intervention. The Covid-19 pandemic that characterizes this 2020 is no exception, and has shown - from the very beginning - how much the coordinated action of associations, organizations, cooperatives has proved decisive in supporting entire segments of the fragile population.

The action of operators and volunteers has proved crucial especially where social distancing could not be practiced, and relationship skills have proved essential in relationships with particularly needy people, from homeless to people with dementia. A simply essential help, in the absence of which we would have paid on the living flesh of men, women and children, an even higher price than the already enormous one that unfortunately has been paid.

It is precisely in difficult times that a wide range of new projects, new energies and new social experiments are released in civil society, and in particular in the world of the third sector, which have an immediate impact on the territories and which normally have the advantage of being replicable in other contexts and in other places, often even if aimed at different recipients.

Even the hurricane linked to the Coronavirus has given rise to a wealth of ideas and projects - those that are normally defined as "good practices" - which today constitute a precious treasure but which will even more constitute a strong legacy for the months and years to come. "Nothing will be the same again," many say. "That everything is more human and supportive than before" is the challenge that the non-profit universe will try to pursue in the near future.

It will not be easy, because the pandemic has violently shaken the universe of the third sector, even in its internal equilibrium. One of the most important litmus tests, that is, the data of donations (which are the fuel on which many organizations can live), have shown a real revolution in the months that we have behind us. Faced with a number of organizations that for more than 80% have kept the offer of their support services active, albeit with the necessary changes, the donations have focused on the health sector, leaving many in a condition of basic fragility subjects not identified as immediately useful in the health emergency phase. Four out of ten organizations report a drop of more than 50% in collections, one in ten even 100%, with entire sectors - such as international cooperation - particularly affected *.

The restarting phase that sees us all as protagonists tickles even more the imagination that is inherent in doing good: the gift of one's time and effort seeks new ways to express itself and manifest itself. The umpteenth challenge of a world that has never given up on the impossibility of closeness and taking care.

* # ildonononsiferma - Italian Institute of Donation

Stefano Caredda
NP may 2020