About us

The projects that Africa Foundation fund and facilitate, assist in the protection of Africa’s wilderness through support for the socio-economic development of rural populations living in, or close to the conservation areas. Together with eco-tourism operators - primarily the & Beyond organisation - and in consultation with the communities themselves, Africa Foundation has supported many successful community empowerment projects and is currently helping to fund six major programmes in addition to over forty smaller projects in South Africa, Botswana, Kenya, Tanzania, Zimbabwe and Namibia.

Our Philosophy

Our philosophy is simple - we believe that communities are most effectively helped only if they are empowered to help themselves. We therefore support organisations that work in tandem with communities and encourage them to take ownership of all projects to ensure sustainability. We support projects that are identified through needs analysis studies and community-generated proposals, and for which efficient and effective project management, administration, donor relations, implementation expertise and monitoring and evaluation are in place.

Our Role

Our role is to:

• Identify needs that fit our criteria
• Communicate these needs to potential donors
• Raise the money to address them
• Manage the money prudently
• Allocate the funds
• Work with the project managers to ensure effective use of funds and a successful project
• Account to our donors

Our Funding Criteria

The following are long-established criteria of Africa Foundation:

• We focus on communities in or around protected wilderness areas that are supported by eco-tourism
• We fund projects in three core categories;
  Education
  Healthcare and water provision
  Income generating activities
• Funding needs are identified by in-depth consultation and by agreement with the communities
• We only fund projects that are sustainable by virtue of community buy-in and active involvement on an on-going basis
• All projects must be managed on the ground, by organisations that demonstrate:
  • › High quality management
  • › Sound progress and effectiveness monitoring
  • › Accountability and the ability to provide comprehensive feedback
  • › A track record of high quality donor relationship management
  • › In every case, there must be an agree ratio for the application of our funds in terms of M&OS and project costs, tailored to the nature of the project
  • › A measurable, favourable impact in the community