Legal Notices
ANBI Status
C4C (Stichting Culture For Change) is recognized by the Dutch government as a ‘General Benefit Organization’ (ANBI). With this C4C and its donors benefit from certain tax advantages in inheriting and donating .
To comply with the ANBI conditions and regulations, we provide the following information on this website:
Contact:
Or via Willem van de Put, +31622908419
Chamber of Commerce number 68442661
RSIN no. 8574.45.285, BTW nr NL 857445285 B01
Bank account NL59 INGB 0003 615404 SWIFT INGBNL2A
Web hosting: OVH
Contact: 1-855-684-5463
Website create and designed by Pascal Crijnen and Flora Garde.
Financial reporting is published on the website as soon as there are financial activities.
Supervisory Board:
- Drs MEJ Merkx, chairman / treasurer
- Prof Dr JBM van Woensel, secretary
- Drs. Santing, member.
Members of the Supervisory Board receive no remuneration for their activities.
Management / Board of Directors:
- BMNR van Mierlo
- WACM van de Put
Strategic Plan 2022-2024
Mission and Vision
Our vision: an all-inclusive world, where cultural variety is celebrated though equitable distribution of resources.
Our mission: improve effectiveness, relevance and efficiency of community based interventions aimed at improving lives of excluded people.
Core work: Bridging knowledge and action. C4C bridges a) international expertise to local application; b) relief to development. c) research to implementation, d) local knowledge to international recognition.
The works
WHAT: C4C is a platform of expertise that connects individuals and organisations across continents and sectors. Local groups and organisations in fragile settings link up with international expertise in development and social services. Cultural aspects of traumatized societies are included in an approach that motivates people to take control over their situation and helps them to work on positive change.
WHO: C4C works for and with people that have given up, and have been given up on. Expulsion happens when people are displaced, fleeing from violence and obscene poverty. Expulsion also happens to people who are not going anywhere – because they have no means to leave. Coming from a health care background, C4C founders worked in fragile states and learned that improving health in extreme situations requires a social – and not only medical – approach. C4C developed a way to identify agency and resources in populations that have been expulsed. C4C studies the effects of its work and shares information publicly.
HOW: People excluded from public services and cut off from any development perspective have often lost the use of their own communal resources for change. These are hidden in the damaged social fabric of the community. C4C engages the whole community in a process of identifying local problems, local resources, and local change agents. C4C restores healing relationships successfully on the basis of cultural knowledge and therapeutic skills. And helps build new resources where needed, connecting locally defined needs to international expertise.
WHERE: C4C works for the most excluded people, and they can be anywhere. They are in countries that are either politically fragile, environmentally vulnerable or both, or they are migrants in need. Overall, there is an urgent need to link sustainable development to global security and migration – as underlined in SDGs. Exclusion, migration and security are central problems of our time. Special challenges are in addressing the relations between migrants, home societies and societies of arrival. C4C will focus on linking migrants (in refugee settings but also in migrant communities in countries of arrival) with home countries.
Activities
Action Research: undertaking studies while implicating the local population in all stages of the process, showing how culture can support peace initiatives, prevent and combat violence, and improve economic means;
‘NGO-type’ projects: for example in the field of Gender Based Violence, mobilization of women’s groups, social & financial inclusion (C4C works both independently and in the role of ‘subcontractor’);
Media projects and documentation: by means of video, film, radio or publications or other channels that can record processes of change
The product
Local agents: C4C always aims to work for local agents in civil-society organisations, community-based groups, ‘local NGOs’. Convinced that the ‘poles are shifting’, and that international ownership of international collaboration will be replaced by local ownership, C4C aims to accelerate this process by positioning itself ‘in the middle’, offering a bridging role between international knowledge centres and agencies and local implementing organisations.
Improved effectiveness, relevance and efficiency of community based interventions – which translates in, for example
- An effective, culturally informed approach to end violence against women – experience is built in Afghanistan, Burundi and Cambodia (see box).
- Local communities using new networks to inform each other of threats and opportunities, leading to measurable economic growth and security.
- Informing NGOs and government agencies of local barriers for change and how to overcome them.
Structure, Organization and Funds
C4C aims to be an independent, nonpartisan “think-and-do tank”, a platform that works to strengthen impact of community interventions. We do this by producing high-quality research and practical, evidence-based policy recommendations that inform the practices and policies of communities, public and private sector actors, donors and global institutions.
We are deeply committed to the principles of independence, transparency, and accountability, both as a means to foster better development outcomes and to maintain the integrity of our work. In keeping with this principle, we acknowledge our funding sources on our website.C4C requires funds to implement activities according to its mission. Costs are made to implement projects, to run a very small office that writes proposals, monitors projects and documents experience, and to bring in funds. C4C is so far built around project implementation for which project funding was sought. Attempts are now made to find additional income such as corefunding, seed funding and non-earmarked grants.
The strategy to fund the activities is in connecting different sources of income:
- Institutional funds (institutional donors contribute to direct project costs and add 5%-7% for indirect costs);
- Private funds from foundations, charities , lotteries such as the NPL, and other grants not earmarked for a specific project or activity;
- Consultancy income from subcontracted work, granted by other agencies;
- Membership fees from institutional or private members of the platform, and donations from ‘Friends of C4C’.
Membership
Positioning C4C: through media attention, website, publication and active contacting potential partners C4C aims to position itself as a niche-player in the field of ‘bridging’ and cultural translation, recognized for its experience and delivered quality.
Identify partnerships: C4C will actively seek partners among the NGO’s and UN agencies and offer its expertise. Partners with whom partnership is being discussed are Cordaid, KIT, Liliane Foundation, Lepra Foundation in the Netherlands, ITG, Memisa, Medecines du Monde in Belgium, RACHA and NIPH in Cambodia, JLI in the US, NAR and ICGT in Rwanda, Tubahumurize in Burundni, TPO Nepal in Nepal, Limpal in Colombia and others.
C4C seeks members among individuals, organisations and foundations.
- Individualswill be organised in the ‘friensds of C4C inititiave’ – see below.
- Organisationsinterested in the approach of C4C are asked to become members of the platform. From that position they will be asked to attend annual sessions to discuss the strategy and direction of the platform. Services offered to the members include updates on succesful examples of the use of local culture to imporve prohect impact; trends in the shift towards local ownership, and networking optoins between partners and members.
- Foundationswill be approached to support the efforts of C4C. They are welcome to the annual strategy meetings if they are interested. They will receive updates and reports as required.
Friends of C4C
Goal: to build a network of people who support C4Cs; who make C4C donations; of whom some are prepared to act as ambassadors (for example to make C4C more widely known and to recruit new friends). Friends of C4C are invited and welcome at all public activities of C4C, such as lectures, presentations, seminars and debates.
What do we expect from the friends of C4C?
– Individual donations of € 50, – per year or more.
– Ambassadorship. The Friends willing and prepared to do so are asked to present another friend or family member every year as a new Friend. As a result, the circle of friends is expanding every year.
Messages to communicate
- Our expectations (see above).
- C4C does not overwhelm you with mail or additional requests for donations.
- You receive the newsletter in your mailbox 3 x per year
- To draw attention to the tax-deductible periodic donation by notarial deed.
- Counseling legacies.
How do we maintain the friendship bond?
- Brochure explaining the concept of Friends (and ambassadors) of C4C; including a personal appeal in the introduction.
- 3 x per year concise newsletter (including one newsletter in the ‘week of the notar’y: Friends of C4C are alerteda during the Week of the Testament to the possibility of inheritances.) Friends who want to contribute more than € 100 are reminded of the possibility of tax-free donation).
- Friends are informed in advance if C4C appears in the media.
- Invitations for seminars, debates, courses e.d.
Finance
Per 31 December 2022, C4C’s bank account showed a total of € 2.496,42 (01-01-2022: € 3.219,36). C4C had no direct or indirect project income – although C4C had direct and indirect project-related activities, as reported above. All projects reported on where developed by C4C in collaboration with the partners mentioned. The budgets involved were run by and through the partners, and fees were paid to consultants on an individual basis between partners and consultants.
In the past years C4C did not succeed in securing large and multi-year unearmarked funds. A modest number of loyal private donors have come forward, and other income comes from consultancy work done by the founders. Costs are made for maintenance of the website, support for local partners, development of proposals and travel for training at the invitation of partners. Income for C4C was generated by activities of C4C staff such as lecturing in Belgium and the Netherlands, and the course-directorship for Fordham University New York (Mental Health in Complex Emergencies).
C4C attempted to apply the rules for financial reporting in accordance with the Directive on Fundraising Institutions as published by the Annual Report Council (richtlijn voor fondsenwervende instellingen zoals die door de Raad voor de Jaarverslaggeving is gepubliceerd -richtlijn 650), but the amounts that actually passed though the C4C channels since 2019 are so small that they officially do not require an official financial report.
You will find the articles of association and statutory objective here: