In March 2009, the Ford Foundation and the Institute for Research and Debate on Governance (IRG) invited members from eleven different self-help networks and community-based/grassroots organizations to participate in a joint seminar. Its aim was to come to a better understanding of how groups of this kind structure themselves and how they engage in global advocacy. The seminar was also meant to strengthen the groups themselves, through the sharing of experienced practices, successes and failures.