About us
About us
When Luiza Serpa was invited for an interview in the lobby of Santos Dumont Airport, in Rio de Janeiro, she could not imagine that her life would be totally transformed. It was there that she met former financial market executive and philanthropist Marcos Flavio Azzi, who was looking for someone to lead the opening of the Rio de Janeiro branch of the now-defunct Instituto Azzi, in São Paulo. After a successful partnership, the team noticed that the profile of the city required a little more flexibility to achieve the proposed objectives and, thus, with the support of the philanthropist, Instituto Phi was born in March 2014.
The non-governmental organization advises individuals and companies to donate to social projects, ensuring a well-applied investment and measuring results. The work is tailor made, that is, personalized for each donor, seeking to connect their cause with the best solutions to reduce social inequalities in Brazil.
“Instituto Phi manages to masterfully combine the professionalism of a high-performance organization when it relates to its investors, with a human, solidary and judicious vision when it invests in social projects”, says Marcos Flávio Azzi.
Over the years, Instituto Phi has become a major hub of social innovation, with vast knowledge in social organizations of the most varied causes and sizes across the country. In the case of companies, social investment can be made by direct contribution or through incentive laws with the advice of Phi.
The projects that are developed through Instituto Phi’s mentorship are in accordance with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which are a collection of 17 global metrics established by the General Assembly of the United Nations to make the world a better place. In order to avail financial support, the organizations are evaluated based on stability, transparency, impact potential and management quality.
In 2019, the bridges that were built by Instituto Phi took its efforts not only to all the regions of Brazil, but were also carried abroad, through partnerships with a philanthropic fund of a US multinational company that solidified the financial assistance to community-based social organizations.
Completing eight years in 2022, with offices in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, Instituto Phi has already been recognized by Época magazine as one of the 100 best NGOs in the country and, in 2020, won the Folha Social Entrepreneur Award, in the Humanitarian Aid category.
More than providing financial resources for social transformation, Instituto Phi works to develop the practice of philanthropy, so that all citizens are committed to promoting collective well-being. The name Phi was inspired by the Greek word philanthropy, which means “love of humanity” – in the institute's case, the search is for intelligent philanthropy, with monitoring and tracking of social impact results.
