NIGD operates on a project basis. Each project is supervised by a project supervisor who is in charge of the project budget. The project supervisor is directly responsible to the board.  
 
NIGD was founded in 1997 by Reino Hjerppe, Veli-Pekka Niitamo, Heikki Patomäki, Katarina Sehm-Patomäki, Vappu Taipale, Riku Warjovaara, and Matti Wuori. The board is elected at its annual meetings. In 2007, membership includes 78 persons.

Board

Matti Kohonen.

Matti Kohonen serves a current chair to the board.

Ruby van der Wekken
Since 2003, when she was residing for three years in the Amazonas of Brazil, Ruby has been  an active member of NIGD involved in most of its day to day work and development and has furthermore been active among other with NIGDs work around the WSF and its International Council. Ruby is currently based at home where she takes care of her youngest son, whilst working as a freelance journalist on development policy issues. As an activist she is involved in various other entities in Finland, in particular on the WSF process and issues of ecological democracy.

Raphael Hoetmer
Raphael is a Dutch activist and researcher, whose contributed to the construction and development of the Programme on Democracy and Global  Transformation in Lima over the past two years. He´se currently coordinator of this centre, which organizes debates, publications and  academic programs in the San Marcos University, and works with different social organizations in Peru. He is currently advancing his PhD research  on the situation of social movements in Peru in comparative perspective.
As an activist Rapha has been involved in different networks, collectives and social organizations in both Europe and Latin-America, engaged in the struggle against the privatization of services; the construction of solidarity networks in between European and
Latin-American social movements; and the refugeemovement in the Netherlands.

Ritu is a medical graduate with a doctorate in Public Health from Jawharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, where she is currently a faculty member. She has been active in the people's/alternative health movement since 1982 and is a member (currently convenor) of the Medico Friend Circle, an all-India network of socially conscious medicos and others with concerns about health of the poor and the rational practise of medicine. She is one of the coordinators of the Swasthya panchayat, working group on health of Lokayan and active in the Vasudhaiva Kutumbakm network. As an inter-disciplinary reseracher, she has written on issues of urban poor and planning, poverty nutrition and communicable deseases (especially TB and AIDS), epidemology, health systems research and health policy, dalits and backwards castes, NGOs in health, and linkages of democracy and health. Currently, she is also a member of the Working Group on Ecology and Dignity of the SADED, CSDS.