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South Africa
Goal
To support a vibrant, diverse and inclusive civil society in which nonprofit organizations work to deepen democracy, increase participation in decisionmaking, advance socioeconomic and racial equality, and promote justice and reconciliation.
Objectives
Nonprofit Sector and Philanthropy: To build a more effective and well-managed nonprofit sector that is engaged with issues of poverty and inequality, and that is adequately resourced through public and private funding.
Rights, Responsibilities and Participation: To strengthen people’s engagement with local community structures and increase public participation in decisionmaking processes to ensure that people’s rights are upheld, advanced and fulfilled.
Race and Ethnic Relations: To enhance the ability of nonprofit organizations and local communities to better address racism and discrimination, and to promote justice and reconciliation.
Civil society in South Africa continues to play a critical role in addressing the country’s challenges. Nonprofit organizations can partner with government to improve the quantity and quality of basic services for the majority of the population. Others strengthen civil society by engaging in policy formulation and implementation.
The nonprofit sector also can act as a critical independent voice and an advocate for local community needs, ensuring that resources allocated to the sector itself and toward poverty alleviation are used effectively.
We give priority to support of South Africa-based organizations. Grantmaking emphasizes efforts in the provinces of Eastern Cape, Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal and Western Cape.
Cross-cutting themes
The HIV/AIDS pandemic is not only a health issue, but also a serious political, social and economic concern, affecting all sectors of society. Given the scale of the problem and the size of our resources, we do not have a distinct HIV/AIDS program. Instead, we integrate our involvement with this challenge across all three program objectives.
In addition, we support efforts to build women’s leadership and management skills, and to encourage women’s participation in governance, democracy-building and policy development, especially at the local level.
Nonprofit Sector and Philanthropy
We believe in the importance of the nonprofit sector and philanthropy. We support efforts to strengthen the nonprofit sector, build national and provincial nonprofit coalitions and networks, develop a strong nonprofit law, and unlock resources for development.
Specifically, we support:
- Coalitions and networks responding to the needs of poor communities and grassroots organizations; training and technical assistance to organizations building the capacity of nonprofits, especially women-led, community-based nonprofits; and support for nonprofits to influence public policy that is relevant to their work on poverty and inequality.
- Capacity building and training to ensure that nonprofits benefit from registration, tax exemption and other aspects of the legal and fiscal enabling environment; and advocacy campaigns to inform the expenditure of public and private philanthropy resources to benefit the nonprofit sector.
- Philanthropic initiatives and resource mobilization, including community-based philanthropy, community foundations, women’s funds, workplace giving, individual giving, family foundations, volunteerism, new forms of giving from black empowerment companies and other emerging forms of philanthropy, and research on patterns and levels of giving.
Click here to view the ten most recent grants for this program area.
Rights, Responsibilities and Participation
Our focus is on meaningful interaction between government and civil society at the local level. Grantmaking includes support for initiatives that increase community and nonprofit engagement with local government, and paralegal and advice offices around key development priorities.
Specifically, we support:
- Programs and efforts, including new and innovative approaches, that facilitate and enhance community participation in local planning and decisionmaking through ward committees, community development workers, community development committees and other mechanisms.
- Research, documentation and dissemination of information about best practices and approaches to improve policy implementation.
- Efforts to strengthen the capacity of advice offices and the paralegal sector through accredited training and capacity building, and to improve government’s understanding of paralegal advice offices through advocacy and marketing efforts, including investigating appropriate measures that promote regular flows of funding to the paralegal sector.
Click here to view the ten most recent grants for this program area.
Race and Ethnic Relations
Nonprofit organizations can help address longstanding racial and ethnic divisions and tensions, provide training and support, facilitate dialogue, and promote healing and reconciliation.
Specifically, we support:
- Efforts aimed at increasing the capacity of the nonprofit sector to address the challenges of building a nonracial society based on equity and respect for diversity.
- Efforts that increase the capacity of local communities to address racism, respect diversity, and promote healing and reconciliation.
Click here to view the ten most recent grants for this program area.