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Services for grantmakers
Linking grantmakers to agencies serving African
communities |
Summary
A service for innovative grantmakers of all kinds:
- foundations
- family trusts
- small companies and partnerships
- corporations
- individuals
Cost-effective assistance to help you make grants to African
organizations who are tackling issues of local and global significance.
Services tailored to match each grantmaker's resources, goals and preferences,
provided by:
Pamoja Incorporated, a Vermont-based, nonprofit corporation
and a resource for community innovation worldwide.
One participant's comment on donors and the
FunFun workshop
"I always thought of these agencies as papers,
computers and 'inhuman' people."
"It [FunFun]] has been an enlightening experience.
It has given me courage to actually look for the people behind the
donor agencies."
(Makerere University, Uganda) |
Situation
- Africa, the world's poorest region, has exciting opportunities to
assist grassroots initiatives
- international philanthropic investment in Africa remains extremely
limited compared to other regions
- most grant funding to African agencies comes from a handful of larger
foundations, such as Ford, MacArthur, Rockefeller, Carnegie and Kellogg
- newer foundations are launching grantmaking programs in Africa, yet
they mainly fund non-African recipients working in Africa
- indigenous agencies seem beyond the reach of most European and north
American grantmakers
Why does so little grant funding go to African organizations?
- challenges of designing and setting up grantmaking programs, for
those without extensive experience and networks in Africa
- insufficient information outside Africa on the charitable opportunities
- difficulties that potential grantmakers face to reach and assess
African agencies who are potential grantees
- costs to manage a grantmaking program in Africa, compared to grantmaking
within a donor's home region.
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Pamoja offers an affordable alternative to developing in-house capacities
for Africa grantmaking. We are prepared to:
- guide you through the process of developing a strategy for grantmaking
in Africa that builds on your own values and interests
- advise you on selection of a geographic focus and program areas,
and on the kind of grantees you want to target
- help you set up a grants review and selection process
- assist you to put together a grants portfolio of virtually any size
or scope
- once your Africa grantmaking program is set up, support your program
at what ever level of services you find appropriate, from iterative
consultations to direct portfolio management
- provide these tailored services to you much more economically than
establishing a complete Africa grantsmaking unit within your agency
Our resources are people and networks
- as development professionals and part-time Africa residents, we travel
to various parts of the continent many times each year
- in Africa since the 1960s, we have a deep first-hand understanding
of social and economic development in African countries
- we work with dozens of international nonprofit organizations, donors,
bilateral and multilateral agencies, national, local and community groups
in over 30 countries
- we have created extensive networks of professional colleagues in
Africa, both Africans and international collaborators; we exchange news
and insights, share assignments and enjoy long-tern friendships
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African agencies spend a lot of time trying
to make contact with potential donors. Pamoja helps both parties
identify and assess each other, and make partnerships. |
Pamoja board members and associates continually expand our base through
involvement in project consultations, grantmaking services, and FunFun
training
Pamoja's board members and associates have decades of experience in
Africa in:
- Conflict transformation
- Health and HIV/AIDS
- Women's advancement
- Small enterprise development
- Agriculture and food processing
- Alternative/appropriate technology
- Product design and manufacturing
- Handicraft production and marketing
- Community development
- Natural resource management
- Renewable energy
- Strengthening civil society organizations
- Organizational development
- Teacher training and development
- Peace education in schools
- Educational standards
Who are the potential grantees in Africa?
Most African NGOs and other potential grant
recipients are young and enthusiastic as organizations. Many are
relatively unsophisticated in managerial and governance terms. They
often require both systems strengthening and financial resources
to thrive. |
Africans have a long history of coming together to
form organizations such as:
- nongovernmental organizations (NGOs)
- community based organizations (CBOs)
- producer groups and cooperatives
- savings and credit organizations
- microfinance institutions
- women's clubs
- faith-based agencies
- trusts and benevolent associations
- professional associations and service groups
- sports and cultural associations
- trade unions
- nongovernmental schools and parent associations
- technical schools, colleges and universities
- regional and inter-country coordinating bodies
- advocacy groups
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During FunFun workshops we often hear references
to the difficulties of harvesting fruit of the money tree. |
They are working out solutions to poverty, hunger and food security,
health care, human rights, environmental degradation, peace and reconciliation,
education, civil governance and a host of other pressing issues that Africans
identify as priorities.
With targeted cooperation from Pamoja and the grantmakers we assist,
these committed African nonprofits can:
- reach their full potential as well-managed and well-governed organizations
- provide better low-cost, locally-based services to members and other
clients
- pilot innovative approaches to meeting community needs
- scale up the benefit of successful innovations to reach many more
people
Examples of Pamoja board member's services in grantmaking in Africa
- The Africa Grants Program of the McKnight Foundation of Minnesota,
for its women's empowerment grantmaking in Tanzania and Zimbabwe, to
solicit and analyze applications, make recommendations and monitor grantees;
program design recommendations and management assistance with grantmaking
to help African children orphaned by HIV/AIDS;
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Pamoja helps grantseekers understand how
to work with grantmakers, to make the match of services and
funding resources. |
For a southern Africa regional program that supports inter-country service
associations, to provide technical assistance both pre-grant and during
grants, to build the associations' organizational capacities, funded
by USAID;
- Design of a grantmaking program in Namibia aimed at strengthening
community conservation efforts, managed by the Worldwide Fund for Nature
(WWF);
- Consultation to the Ford Foundation on development of its five-nation
West Africa Rural Foundation based in Senegal, for grantmaking in community
development and strengthening of civil society.
- Research on a dozen grantmaking programs and production of a manual
on the design grantmaking programs in Africa for USAID entitled, Designs
for Collaboration.
Where to start with grantmaking in Africa?
- Making a Difference in Africa: Advice from Experiences Grantmakers,
by Rob Buchanan and Jayne Booker, published by the Council on Foundations;
lays out possible approaches, including the Pamoja option: extensive
use of informed consultants
- Contact Pamoja at: pamoja@sover.net
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