Secours populaire is a movement which allows everyone of goodwill to personally invest in the practice of showing solidarity.
The structures of the SPF
A large decentralised movement, Secours populaire today is a movement for freedom comprising 98 departmental and professional federations as well as just over 600 committees.
A federation of Secours populaire is a departmental structure. It acts as a relay tasked within encouraging, co-ordinating and developing aid actions and ensuring that they are funded. Each federation is made up of all the committees and local branches in the same department. A departmental committee, elected by the departmental congress, ensures the life of the federation. This departmental committee ensures that the aims are respected and it is supported in its work by a finance committee, a secretariat, a treasurer and a general secretary.
A committee, for its part, is a local structure which brings together benefactors from a district, a commune, one or more cantons, a work place or centre of study. This operates in accordance with the organisation’s aims in order to encourage, co-ordinate and develop, by calling on donations and developing initiative which enable donors to financially contribute to actions of humanitarian aid.
Finally, the SPF branch is a group of individuals (at least two) which carries out charity work at the place where they live, work or study in association with a committee, federation or even directly with the national Association (head office) of Secours populaire. The activity must be regular.
The functioning of the SPF
Every two years, the aims of the Secours populaire are decided and voted for at the National Congress. They are prepared as a result of meetings with collectors from the branches, general assemblies of committees and departmental congresses. The statutory events give rise to multiple exchanges with SPF partners (collectors, aid beneficiaries, public bodies, economic decision-makers) both in France and overseas. The management bodies, elected at all levels by the collectors themselves monitor the guidelines for a period of two years.
In total, Secours populaire comprises 98 federations and just over 600 committees throughout France. Currently, a regional structure is developing with the introduction of a regional council within each region.
In order to co-ordinate and drive the movement at the national level, the structures elected by the Congress (Board of Directors and its secretariat, National committee, national office, finance committee) meet regularly several times a year.