Africa

It was the passion for the idea of building community wealth that led me to East Africa. Having grown up in Tennessee and worked for years in economically disadvantaged areas of the States, and having …

In 1998, the Southern African Grantmakers’ Association (SAGA), in conjunction with the Mott, Ford and Kellogg Foundations, initiated a pilot programme in ten different communities to test the viability of the concept of community foundations …

Strategic choice number 4 in the Bernard van Leer Foundation’s new strategic plan refers to ‘Impact beyond the project level’. BvLF is beginning to work with community foundations in Africa as a way to seek …

An increasing number of people now feel that the key to developing effective disaster reduction policies is action at local government and community level. The biggest obstacle here is the lack of knowledge of how …

Launched in June 2000 to respond to the sustainability needs of the African women’s movement, African Women’s Development Fund (AWDF) is an Africa-wide fundraising, grantmaking and communication initiative. In 2003, three years after its establishment, …

Persuading people to help build an endowment fund that will support civil society capacity-building is never an easy task. In a country with extremes of poverty and immediate need like Kenya, it must be even …

Elkanah Odembo is a man with a mission. Establishing the Centre for Promotion of Philanthropy and Social Responsibility in Nairobi – a substantial challenge in itself – is for Elkanah only the means to a …

Katharine Pearson sees the planning grants as important for the success of the new centre. ‘We see it as very important that Elkanah and his colleagues be given the opportunity to figure out the steps …

The Ford Foundation is giving one-year planning grants to seven indigenous foundations in East Africa. Who are these foundations, what do they do, and how will the planning grants help them? Caroline Hartnell talked to …

Save the Children’s ‘Children and War Project’ (C&W) was set up in 1988 to help the Government of Mozambique address the psychosocial needs of children affected by war. When these cooperative efforts proved ineffective, C&W …