We are already halfway through the year. Time flies. In another six months, 2023 will be history. I am happy to share some of CAPSI’s success stories, as well as those that have challenged us since the beginning of the year.
We started the year with exciting news of the awarding of a grant of $7.8 million by the Mastercard Foundation to research the contributions of the non-profit sector towards creating dignified employment for young Africans. The project will be implemented in 17 countries over a 5-year period. The details of this project were highlighted in an official press release, with many of you sharing positive and encouraging feedback to this news. The work of this project has begun, and I encourage you to participate and share these opportunities to participate within your youth-focused networks.
Staying with donor engagements, we recently hosted the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation and took them on a reflective journey of how the Centre has grown through their generous and pioneering support. This was one of several visits that the Foundation has made to the Centre since our inception, with this visit hosting senior directors and the deputy director. Mott Foundation is one of our main donors and has supported the Centre from our founding days. Our Centre also received generous early support from the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the Ford Foundation, who were later joined by the Open Society Foundation, who recently awarded the Centre a tie-off grant due to the institutional changes within the broader Open Society Foundations network.
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As we undertake our work, we continue to collaborate with like-minded institutions such as TrustAfrica, Africa Philanthropy Network, African Philanthropy Forum, East Africa Philanthropy Network and Southern Africa Trust, among many others. Jointly with these partners, we will hold the 2nd African Philanthropy Academic Conference and the 4th African Philanthropy Conference in the cities of Dakar and Saly in Senegal, respectively. I invite you to register to attend the conference by visiting the official conference website where, you will also find information on the past conferences.
It has been more than five years since the Centre was established. We worked with an external evaluation agency to look at our journey so far and gather meaningful lessons from our progress. You can learn more about the Evaluation Report. I will be happy to receive your reactions to the report. This process will help us to continuously sharpen our interventions as we grow. There are several observations that need our attention, for example, how we fully embed ourselves into the Business School, as well as raising adequate resources from African sources. These and many other observations are areas that we will work on knowing that they are not as simple as they may appear – however, we are determined to make sure that at some point, we are fully embedded in the Wits Business School and that our sustainability is not dependent on foreign sources or any others, for that matter.
We are also excited that our academic programmes are gaining wider recognition. In 2023, we are looking forward to the graduations of four doctoral graduations and two masters. This will take the number of doctoral graduates from our Centre to nine (bear in mind that this is since inception – barely six years ago), and the masters by Research graduates to four. We are also expecting nine graduations by the end of the academic year of masters students by coursework. We are in our second cohort of Master of Management in African Philanthropy students and preparing to welcome the third cohort of students for the Postgraduate Diploma in African Philanthropy and Resource Mobilisation. In addition to academic programmes, we have held several customised masterclasses for various clients ranging from universities and NGOs, to governmental and intergovernmental agencies. We will be happy to work with you if you require a customised module that speaks to your area of focus or addresses specific organisational needs.
I am also excited to invite you to read our growing body of publications. We declared 2022 as our ‘Year of Publications’, and we met our objective by publishing articles and reports focused on the African philanthropy, social investment and related fields. Visit our website to read our open access material and our YouTube channel to watch related webinars such as Research Spotlight Series and Academic Publishing workshops whose contents have been beneficial for both emerging and seasoned researchers.
We also recently published our first book focusing on the impact of COVID-19 on philanthropy, civil society, and the corporate sector. The book will be available soon on open access. Meanwhile, we will hold several launch events and give you an opportunity to hear directly from the authors. In addition, we are working on our second book focusing on the barriers to civil society in Africa. We recently held a convening on this theme, which we will share recordings.
The Conversations on African Philanthropy Podcast continues to grow and cover some important ground. Please take some time to listen to our conversations with different actors in the sector. Over the next couple of months, you will be hearing perspectives mainly from East Africa. Most of these episodes were recorded at the recent East Africa Philanthropy Network Conference hosted in Zanzibar. Our hope is to cover all regions. We are therefore planning to record guests from West and Central Africa at the upcoming 4th African Philanthropy Conference in Senegal.
There are several other activities that make us want to do more. Read about these and many more in this edition of the newsletter. As I sign out, always remember to CAPSI it…
Bhekinkosi Moyo
