Beja lessons learned

Evolution

I do not repeat seasons in the same way,
What blooms in one season ripens in another;
Nothing is lost when there is awareness,
Everything transforms in the course of its own journey.

What is not found now finds waiting,
What seems like a pause prepares for the future;
In the silence of each spring
Something learns before it emerges.

I transform myself in the movement itself,
Water adjusts its course when it encounters resistance;
The wind modulates its intensity
According to the terrain and its demands.

The seed tests the depth of the ground
Before breaking through the surface;
Each gesture leaves a mark,
Each mark amplifies what exists.

Not all rain comes in the right amount,
Not every cycle follows the forecast;
Yet each deviation reveals
New understanding

I observe.
I incorporate.
I follow differently.

What seemed like an obstacle
becomes a reference point,
What seemed like a failure indicates
direction;
What seemed like a silent pause
Prepares for expansion.

Growing is not staying the same,
It is adjusting with awareness and
intention;
It is transforming experience into
a foundation
And foundation into support.

I continue because I transform myself,
And I transform because I continue;
What remains is not the form,
It is the strength to continue with
greater integrity and depth.

In preparing its 2025 Annual Report, Instituto Beja set aside a specific moment to reflect on lessons learned. Throughout the pages of this publication, the Institute sought to show that its story cannot be told without acknowledging that philanthropic capital is, in essence, venture capital, nor without highlighting its willingness to learn from the field, revisit its paths, renegotiate strategies, change course, and seek new horizons. This characteristic openness places Beja in a position of constant renewal.

With this in mind, understanding the steps taken, the journeys undertaken, and the lessons learned can be an important contribution to the field of philanthropy, so that more institutions also seek to oxygenate their practices.

Below are some of the main lessons learned by the team on different fronts of the Institute:

Beja team at a 2025 end-of-year gathering.

Photo: Jonatha Bongestab

2025 and a new governance for Beja

“In 2025, we understand the importance of having a culture of care and how to navigate these instances. We have seen that it is important to take care of those who make decisions, those who are at the forefront, those we finance, and also the Beja team.”

Marcio Black
Program Director and Member of the Executive Committee of Instituto Beja

“As fluid as Beja is, there is a place for governance, so one of the great lessons of 2025 was the structuring of governance based on the need for transparency in our processes. We were held accountable for this as a team, and today, I believe we are in a much better place with the reorganization of internal and external governance.”

Maria Vogt
Director of Strategic Partnerships and
Innovation and Member of the Executive Committee of Instituto Beja

“This process of awareness at Beja is based on the principle that philanthropy is an actor with political agency. We are constantly walking a tightrope: how to ensure institutional integrity through technique, processes, and governance, while understanding that we have political agency and that we are operating in an unstable and fragmented field. Right now, we are in the process of understanding what needs to be left behind, that is, what kind of philanthropic organization will be able to meet the challenges ahead and which ones are no longer able to provide answers because they are too bureaucratic.”

Marcio Black
Program Director and Member of the Executive Committee of Instituto Beja

“Beja is a new player in philanthropy, with the mission which inevitably stirs some debate, of bringing new energy to the field. In the journey we undertook last year, we realized that reflecting on the dynamics of the field, or proposing ways to unlock certain parts of the ecosystem, must also be subject to critical scrutiny. I think that was the first moment we recognized that while we intended to explore new directions, there were forces we had underestimated—such as the weight of tradition, or the existence of solutions already present in the field that we had simply not seen. This has prompted us to pause and rethink. Being critical of the field does not mean we are immune to criticism ourselves.”

Marcio Black
Program Director and Member of the Executive Committee of Instituto Beja

The shift from strategic pillars to Programmatic Axes

“One lesson learned was to really listen to our portfolio and, based on what we heard, understand whether it is taking us in the direction we want or not. This flexibility and willingness to listen are essential; they are at the core of Beja, and we must never lose sight of that. Beja is constantly evolving, things are changing and developing. So, there is this very active willingness to listen in everything we do. That was a great achievement.”

Maria Vogt
Director of Strategic Partnerships and
Innovation and Member of the Executive Committee of Instituto Beja

“We call our grantees, partners. If Beja sees itself as a political actor and believes that philanthropy needs to navigate toward that place, we automatically become partners with the organizations we fund. Because we don’t fund just for the sake of funding; it’s not a purely technical decision, but one that comes from a perception that we are politically aligned with these organizations, and this has been vocalized by the organizations themselves. I believe that, between mistakes and successes, when we receive this feedback, we understand why it was important to move away from the end goal [the strategic pillars] and focus on the theme [the Programmatic Axes].”

Marcio Black
Program Director and Member
of the Executive Committee of Instituto Beja

The power of doing things together

“After strategic planning, we called each partner to explain our process, the new programmatic axes, and show our desire to be closer, which was well received by everyone. We understand that, by working together, we can exchange ideas, especially considering what Cris always brings from the organizations’ polycapitals and their synergy within the portfolio. This was something we also learned, which is this major criticism of strategic philanthropy, that there is no co-responsibility on the part of those who make the grant, who show up in a year or two saying, ‘So, what have you done?’. We don’t want to operate that way.”

Maria Vogt
Director of Strategic Partnerships and Innovation and Member of the Executive Committee of Instituto Beja

“With the New Longevity Lab, for example, we learned in 2025, that each partner has their own vocation and potential. It’s no use for everyone to be everywhere; that doesn’t make sense. In other words, it’s about recognizing each partner’s vocation, mission, and vision. In Beja’s case, it’s about influencing narratives. So, how do we create spaces to talk differently about new longevity? How do we make this topic relevant? In addition, we understand that if the content is coherent, up-to-date, and important to civil society, it will take on a life of its own. Several groups emerged from this Laboratory that we no longer have control over. That was a great learning experience.”

Maria Vogt
Director of Strategic Partnerships and Innovation and Member of the Executive Committee of Instituto Beja

“Something that CMe strongly advocates is that we need to work as a network to address the scale of the problems we face. This is because it is very unlikely that we will be able to face the challenges ahead on our own. So, it is essential to work collaboratively, and the jargon we use is ‘expand the ability to solve problems for more people.’ This is one of the principles we defend and believe in.”

Fabio Tran
Director of CMe and Member of the Executive Committee of Instituto Beja

“Health Lab, for example, brings together different stakeholders, such as the government, private capital, and academia, and each of these agendas has its own pace. So, it is very important to learn that, regardless of the priority of Beja or any partner, there are different agendas, with different timings and priorities. Thus, this orchestration needs to be done very well in order to be successful.”

Maria Vogt
Director of Strategic Partnerships and Innovation and Member of the Executive Committee of Instituto Beja

“One of the major crises we are experiencing today is a crisis of trust. We are a country with so many wounds that people have stopped trusting each other. When we talk to the organizations we fund, they are all very wounded because they have gone through very violent processes to obtain this funding. Some philanthropic organizations also work alone because they do not trust other organizations. I believe that an example of this building of trust is the Aliança pelo Fortalecimento da Sociedade Civil, which began as an isolated initiative by Cris, a philanthropist who identified an issue she believed to be very important for the country. With this, she mobilizes other philanthropists and civil society actors, and this transforms and institutionalizes itself into a large coalition, with civil society organizations, philanthropic organizations, and law firms working together for the regulation of the sector. However, for this to happen, relationships of trust need to be rebuilt, in addition to the ability to work together with organizations that are open to this type of experience.”

Marcio Black
Program Director and Member of the Executive Committee of Instituto Beja

The search for new paths and innovations

“The fact that Beja creates its own maps and navigation scripts makes people feel very comfortable joining us, in a place that is informal but also committed. These movements are organic, not formal or scripted. For me, this was a great learning experience, more like a reinforcement because we had already seen this, the importance of preserving this place of spontaneity, of not following a script. It is a space that Beja creates and consolidates more and more.”

Maria Vogt
Director of Strategic Partnerships and
Innovation and Member of the Executive Committee of Instituto Beja

“I think the biggest change in 2025 for CMe was the decision to hold the journeys in Brazil in portuguese, which until then had been conducted by the team in India in english, with the help of interpreters. We started doing this in December 2025, and I believe that a large part of the project for 2026 is to internalize the capabilities of conducting the journey for exponential change with brazilians. There is a lot of power in being part of a network in the Global South and, with that, learning how to bring more speed, scale, and sustainability to social transformations, with an awareness of the importance of the local perspective.”

Fabio Tran
Director of CMe and Member
of the Executive Committee of Instituto Beja

Navigate between chapters

Beja in motion

Ballast and transparency

2025 Balance