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

Ruby van der Wekken
Ruby serves as current chair of NIGD. 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.

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.

Jackie Smith
Jackie Smith is Associate Professor of Sociology and Peace Studies  at the University of  Notre Dame , where she also directs the Center  for the Study of Social Movements and  Social Change.  She is the  author of Social Movements for Global Democracy (Johns
Hopkins  University Press, 2008) and a co-author of Global Democracy and the  World  Social Forums (Paradigm Publishers, 2008). She has co-edited  three other books and  numerous articles on the ways globalization  affects civil society and political
movements. She teaches courses  on globalization, popular politics, and the United  Nations.

Marko Ulvila  
Since his youth, Marko has been drawn to social movements working on global challenges, such as, social change towards sustainable societies in the North, and ways of interacting with popular movements in the South for self-determination and human rights. In practice this meant voluntary engagement in organisations such as Coalition for Environment and Development and Friends of the Earth Finland, and studies in relevant topics at the University of Tampere (anthropology, peace and conflict research, development studies and environmental policy).
Marko's first interest in the South was Tanzania, and later in South Asia where he undertook a research project on development NGOs in Bangladesh and Nepal. In India he was associated with the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies and Lokayan. Recently Marko has also been engaged with the Green Party in Finland, which briefly had him working as a special adviser to the Minister for Development Co-operation. Currently he is on parental leave taking care of his children so his wife can pursue her studies