NGO of the Month: MasterPeace

Welcome to the second edition of fundsforNGOs NGO of the Month feature. To inspire you on your journey to create a better world we are showcasing some of the very best development organisations from around the world.

In March we interviewed Uraidah Hassani, Founder and Executive Director of the Women Worldwide Initiative, which you can read here.

This month we are delighted to be joined by Klaartje Spijkers, Senior Project and Fundraising Manager for MasterPeace. MasterPeace is a global grassroots movement that uses music, arts and education to help lead the way to a more sustainable world with less armed conflict. Watch a great introduction to MasterPeace’s work here.

What inspired the establishment of your NGO?

The number of wars and tensions between ‘east’ and ‘west’ are rising, just like the expenditures on weaponry, and yet there is not yet a one positive, attractive and grass-roots movement for peace.

Both Ilco van der Linde (Netherlands) and Mohamed Helmy (Egypt) founders of MasterPeace worked together successfully in a global HIV/AIDS education project, in which Ilco was the International CEO and Mohamed the director for Egypt.

With years of extensive expertise in mobilizing millions around the world in social change projects (including the largest thematic youth project of Europe involving 1 million visitors: The Liberation Festivals in Holland), both MasterPeace founders had envisioned an east-west grassroots movement whereby millions of people would be inspired to take actions for peacebuilding.

2009. This ambitious couple had the dream of creating a global movement of peace-builders. Within ten years they aim to inspire millions of people using their talent and energy to fuel ‘3D’: Dialogue, Development, Disarmament. They called their journey MasterPeace. Day by day artists, social entrepreneurs and companies jumped on board and the dream became reality in over 30 countries with grassroots initiatives run by thousands of volunteers.

Within 3 years we have reached our current status with a Central Office in Cairo (Egypt), European office in Utrecht (Netherlands), MasterPeace Clubs in over 40 countries, 300,000 fans on Facebook, a board with experts from 4 continents, a campaigning team (containing global top marketers), 5 Founding Partners (Corio, vfonds, PAX, Triodos Foundation, Cordaid), a structural donor (Dutch National Postcode Lottery), 37 Collaborative Partners (including the UNAOC, the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations), 16 media partners (including the UNDPI, UN Department of Information and Tribe of Noise with 22,000 artists) and some first business partners (incl. KPMG for the auditing).

What is special about your organization?

MasterPeace is a global grassroots movement that inspires everyone to use their talent and energy for peace building and togetherness. Through music, sports, arts and dialogue, MasterPeace will help lead the way to a more sustainable world with less armed conflict.

We focus on mobilizing talents for peacebuilding. The world has seven billion inhabitants. We view them as seven billion sources of talent and energy. With global and local events, innovative campaigning, the International Day of Peace, our 2.0 platform, social media, local MasterPeace clubs and especially art, sports and music, we invite men and women from all continents and all cultural backgrounds to show leadership and use their talent and energy for building peace.

Our vision, mission and guidelines for all our activities are reflected in what we call our Passion Statement: “We are dedicated to put Music above fighting Dialogue above judgment Bread above bombs Creation above destruction. That’s MasterPeace.”

How does your NGO change lives?

MasterPeace offers a platform for a large community of social entrepreneurs, volunteers, bloggers, musicians, businesses and active citizens to connect together and support with actions, as we believe “Minds are like parachutes, they only function when open.” Millions are already involved in co-creating the movement throughout the world. This makes it one of the fastest growing peace movements ever.

We believe that peace needs more active supporters; more people, organizations, media and companies to stand up and make the need for peace tangible and positive results visible. With our open and inviting activities MasterPeace involved and keeps involving hundreds of thousands of young people that are actively involved in its activities.

From brokering a peace deal in Sierra Leone attended by the president to organizing one of the biggest woman conventions in Afghanistan, MasterPeace is rich with true stories of guts, persistence and ambition featuring thousands of people that MasterPeace changed their lives through the involvement in MasterPeace activities, events, concerts, or workshops.

Why is your organization important to the community you work in?

MasterPeace Clubs are the on-the-ground arms of MasterPeace that reaches the masses; empowers and mobilizes individuals to become actively involved in peace building and limits conflicts on a community level.

The Club is an easy model to adapt, social entrepreneurs, young change makers and other people all over the world are invited to set up MasterPeace Clubs within their cities, regions or countries. Clubs are free to design their own program and use the MasterPeace brand in a way that suits their local needs with our Passion Statement and values as guidelines. Clubs foster collaborative efforts between citizens, artists, sport and peace organizations, businesses, schools and universities.

We encourage our clubs to use art, music, sports, dialogue and events in order to support peace building, reduce conflicts, foster intercultural understanding and recruit new local Masterpeacers. We provide our clubs with practical manuals, licenses, training and professional campaigning materials such as banners, shirts and films. We think and work ‘glocal’: global and local at the same time. We aim for 400 MasterPeace Clubs in over 100 countries by 2020; all together involving around 400,000 new peace-builders and have reached 400 million people with our messages. Right now we have 55 clubs in 42 countries, most of these in (former) conflict areas.

What is your NGOs vision for the world?  

On the UN international Day of Peace, 21 September this year, MasterPeace will rise it to its apotheosis celebrating almost four years of dedication, hard work and successful projects. MasterPeace will initiate and organize 100 peace concerts and events in over 60 countries around the globe. These ‘MasterPeace in Concerts’ will celebrate peace and diversity and fuel intercultural dialogue and conflict prevention.

MasterPeace in Concert is a series of global concert events to be held in over 60 countries and will involve artists from all over the world will perform to fuel dialogue and celebrate diversity. The concert will focus the world’s attention on the universal longing for a sustainable world, free of armed conflict.  Tickets cannot be purchased, they are an exclusive reward for individuals who have engaged in peace-building activities.

The outstanding concerts, speeches, performances and a special ‘Great Minds Meeting’ will provide footage for a 24 hours non-stop Internet broadcasting, reaching out to hundreds of millions all over the globe. MasterPeace will mobilize millions of people worldwide to take actions for peace.  MasterPeace Clubs are present in more than forty countries including current and former conflict areas such as Afghanistan, Colombia, Sierra Leone and Nepal.

For long term vision, MasterPeace works to another milestone in 2020, where over 500 million people are reached and inspired by MasterPeace to start working for peace, dialogue, disarmament and the reduction of armed conflict: 1 million people were or are actively involved via MasterPeace Clubs, educational programs, special contests and (other) #MasterPeaceSupport actions; 400,000 new peace builders (‘Masterpeacers’) are registered with profiles on our website and actively supporting peace work in around 400 regions (including many conflict areas), within 400 MasterPeace Clubs in around 100 countries; 1000+International Peace Day and other peace-building events are organized by the MasterPeace Clubs; International Day of Peace is globally known >20% (4 times more than now); At least 50 global or local peace NGOs state that our support increased their impact.