This New Global Funder Is All About Proximate, On-the-Ground Giving in Africa

Local development has become a hot topic lately as U.S. funders come around to the idea that lasting change requires proximate leadership, and that problems from education to climate action are best solved by the people who live with them every day.

Historically, U.S. funders have primarily used U.S-based intermediaries to execute on their global goals. A 2022 report on global giving by Candid and the Council on Foundations found that just 13% of global grant dollars between 2011 and 2019 directly funded organizations based in the countries receiving support. It also showed that the total universe of funders was actually quite small. Seventy-five percent of all global giving came from only 25 sources.

Signs of a potential paradigm shift were evident during the U.N. General Assembly last fall, when a powerful coalition consisting of USAID, 15 philanthropies and 18 bilateral government donors sought to address lagging progress on SDG goals by collectively committing to shifting and sharing power locally. Heavyweight foundations from Hilton to Packard and Rockefeller signed on.

Another key indicator is the launch this June of Masana wa Afrika, a new foundation that exemplifies the proximate, on-the-ground approach. Masana is based in Africa, led and run by Africans, and works to serve Africa’s children.

ELMA Philanthropies and Delta Philanthropies joined forces to co-launch the independent funder, which had previously operated as a community grants program within ELMA. Masana hopes to build engagement on the continent by welcoming other donors to its work delivering critical care services to children across Africa — kids with special needs in particular.

Backing a new local champion

The two organizations behind the launch have long and deep roots on the continent.

ELMA was founded in 2005 by billionaire music producer Clive Calder, who saw in Africa both enormous need and tremendous potential for change. The quiet giant has been executing on a proximate approach to improving the lives of African children and families for decades. Of the eight distinct foundations in its group, six fund across Africa or make its countries a priority.

Delta Philanthropies is the Masiyiwa family’s vehicle for giving. Its work is led by two signers of the Giving Pledge, Zimbabwe-born billionaire businessman Strive Masiyiwa, and his wife, Tsitsi Masiyiwa, an African philanthropist and entrepreneur.

The family’s philanthropy spans both Delta Philanthropies, which seeks to incubate innovation development models to help drive systems change, and the Higherlife Foundation, which has been working in local communities in Lesotho and Zimbabwe in since 1996. Strive Masiyiwa is also notable in the philanthrosphere as one of the members of the Gates Foundation’s board of trustees, a position he’s held since January 2022.

Tsitsi Masiyiwa, chair of Delta Philanthropies, sees Masana as a good fit with Delta’s own funding strategies. “The Masana wa Afrika model aligns with Delta Philanthropies' approach of keeping community voices at the center of program development,” she said, citing its “high-impact, flexible and trust-based approach to philanthropy in action.”

She also recognized the value of the new funder’s commitment to local leadership and development and its capacity to expand its reach. “These locally based organizations are driven by passionate, local champions who achieve remarkable results due to their deep understanding of their community's needs and challenges. Through Masana wa Afrika, we can collaborate and support more organizations having a big impact.”

Origins with ELMA

Now fully independent, Masana wa Afrika was spun out of an ELMA Community Grants Program that’s been engaged across Africa for more than a decade.

Masana will provide grants and capacity-building support to community-based organizations that deliver critical care services to children across the continent, with a priority on those with special needs.

Based in South Africa and Uganda, Masana currently supports more than 100 organizations in 13 countries, and hopes to expand those numbers as other donors join its work.

Its work provides a critical safety net for children through programming in education and health, and through livelihood development for the families who raise them. Nearly half of all its grants support special needs children.

Trust-based partnerships

Masana’s Africa-based team begins building trusted partnerships by seeking out high-impact, community-based organizations. There are just three selection criteria: They must be African led and community based, provide direct services to children and youth, and have annual budgets of less than $1.25 million.

From there, the team shepherds organizations through the application and grant process. Once funding recommendations are approved by its board, support continues through the reporting process. A commitment to capacity-building pairs financial support with individualized programs in areas like financial management, fundraising and good governance.

Masana’s grants are intended to be trust-based, arriving as multi-year commitments of general operating support. They average between $15,000 and $80,000 annually.

Currently, the foundation’s geographic focus is on the countries of Botswana, Burundi, Eswatini, Ethiopia, Kenya, Lesotho, Mozambique, Malawi, Namibia, South Africa, Tanzania, Rwanda, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. “Over time and with additional funding,” the foundation expects to add more African countries to that already impressive list.

A proximate leader

Masana’s theory of change has long been organized around the fundamental ideas of local development. They hinge on supporting proximate leaders who can apply lived experience to understanding the deep challenges their communities face, and develop solutions that are culturally and contextually relevant.

Its leader for more than a decade is Bernadette Moffat, chair of the Masana wa Afrika board and executive director of ELMA Philanthropies (Africa), who played an instrumental role in bringing the new foundation about.

Speaking from South Africa, Moffat said the idea of Masana started germinating 15 years ago, as ELMA grappled with a common problem: Support at the national level was not necessarily reaching “the place of delivery.”

Relatively new at the time, ELMA questioned how big it was going to get and how things like the robust due diligence process it had developed stood in the way of supporting smaller organizations with operating budgets of under $1 million. “It’s clear we were overwhelming them,” Moffat said.

ELMA reflected on what it needed to do to “get to the right size.” How should it structure due diligence without requiring overly burdensome measurements? How could it be part of the solution, instead of the problem? To help find out, it piloted a small grants program with eight community-based organizations. After a first grant cycle showed promise, ELMA’s board approved a far larger portfolio of 126 organizations in 14 countries. Today, Masana’s philosophy on balancing process and progress is to “embrace complexity, but be driven by outcomes.”

While most other funders were tying their support to programs, ELMA instead chose to provide multi-year general operating support. Its team’s trust-based approach also recognized that other supports were needed to address the “existential” problems faced by teams at smaller organizations, like the CEO who wears five hats and leaders forced to make tough decisions that divert resources from direct services. “The soup doesn’t make itself,” Moffat said.

A time of transition

Reached in Cape Town, South Africa, Masana’s day-to-day leader, Ruth Mapara, said the organization wraps support around partners that are brought on board based on impact alone — and shared how she’s guiding the organization through change.

Her role as director means helping more than 100 organizations in Masana’s portfolio. Beyond grants, Mapara said Masana takes the time to understand the focus and tactics of each of its partners to help them reach their full potential.

A common thread on supportive services is building organizations’ financial and accounting capacity. Preparing for a successful independent audit, for example, is usually beyond common competency, but a necessary part of meeting the expectations of its board as well as the boards of other funders. Governance factors like board development and leadership are also organizational development opportunities.

Part of Mapara’s role these days is to ease the transition to Masana’s independent status for existing grantees, while maintaining a high level of impact. Communication has been job No. 1. Mapara said that initially meant hosting a number of calls with the group, then “drilling down” with grantees who had additional questions.

Mapara also shared that opportunities lie ahead for the CBOs, including perhaps the biggest one — the chance to collaborate with a larger universe of like-minded peers and funders.

One partner’s perspective

Community-based organizations appreciate having a funding partner that understands their culture and language, and can solve problems with just a quick call. From Uganda, Florence Namaganda, founder and executive director of Masana partner Mukisa, shared a story that illustrated the benefits of local partnerships and tapping local knowledge.

Mukisa serves children living with disabilities in Kampala, Uganda’s capital and largest city, as well as three rural districts. It started as a small drop-in center for eight kids — a number that has since ballooned to 5,000.

The organization uses a 360-degree delivery model that wraps family empowerment, advocacy and awareness around health and education services. Families typically seek out Mukisa when they realize something’s wrong with a child’s health.

That was the case with the mother of a child under age two whose mother sought treatment when she noticed missed milestones. She thought it was cerebral palsy and that the family was cursed when it came to having children. But in the process of the child’s treatment, the medical team thought something else might be wrong. They examined the mother and learned that the she had been pregnant nine times, yet had only given birth to three children. Bringing the father for testing, too, helped identify a genetic incompatibility as the root of the problem — dispelling the idea of a curse and aiding the child’s diagnosis and treatment.

An open invitation

For global philanthropy in particular, supporting locally led development requires rethinking power dynamics, understanding local culture, valuing local knowledge and integrating the needs and perspectives of sometimes marginalized groups.

With the launch of Masana wa Afrika, the hope is that a wider universe of funders will play an important role in helping to aggregate additional resources for Africa by embracing a new foundation that’s derisking the investment.

To that end, Masana has issued an open invitation to like-minded funders willing to make a partnership commitment of $1 million a year for three years. Alternatively, it is happy to make introductions to any of its grantee partners — the valued locals that Masana considers the “real experts.”

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