Insights

Omashani Naidoo talks to us about her journey to lead SchoolNet SA, a public benefit nonprofit company that focuses on ICT in education for teaching and learning.

"We use food as an enabler and a catalyst for social change. We don’t just give food to feed people, we strategically give food to beneficiary organisations that focus on education, skills development, youth and women. In that way we strengthen communities – that really excites me about our work."

The overall impact of COVID-19 on African civil society organisations (CSOs) continues to be overwhelmingly negative and widespread. 97.8% of CSOs indicated that COVID-19 impacted and disrupted their operations in one or more ways since the start of the pandemic. The loss of funding by African CSOs is still one of the most significant consequences of the pandemic. The financial health of African CSOs was problematic before the pandemic, and this situation has further deteriorated. 68.1% of CSOs reported a loss of funding since the start of the pandemic, and 57.5% expect further losses over the next 12 months.

“We need to listen to what people dealing with challenging circumstances really need,” says Rachel Kolisi, co-founder of the Kolisi Foundation. This and other fresh new thinking is being championed by young philanthropists such as Kolisi and her husband Siya as key ways in which to meet the country’s growing development challenges after the most disruptive year in democratic South Africa’s history.

Nonprofit Organisations Amendment Bill 2018, published on 1 October 2021, calls for public comment within 30 days. Please take the time to read through the proposed amendments and submit your comments.

The nonprofit sector is the only one with a name starting with a negative, communicating what it is against, not what it is for. Will rebranding the sector really cause it to have more impact? Does it even matter what the community of NPOs, philanthropists and other actors in the third sector are called?

This year is the African Union year for Arts, Culture and Heritage. This week the African Experts’ virtual meeting on Sites of Memory and World Heritage Convention in Africa and Inter-Ministerial Meeting is taking place. While this high-level discussion occurs, on the ground we are sadly witnessing the collapse or near collapse of key museums and heritage institutions in South Africa.

While the Covid-19 pandemic rages, we often focus all our attention on surviving the day-to-day struggles while neglecting crucial global long-term goals. One specific such set is the 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs) adopted by the UN in 2015 as a blueprint for achieving a better and more sustainable future for everyone. Globally, social impact organisations have an important role to play in translating the SDGs from a global framework into local programmes that fit community needs.

In today’s data driven world, sound public policy and civil society initiatives must be informed by accurate information. However, information on society’s marginalised and most vulnerable is often incomplete, inaccurate, or non-existent. For over 30 years, Social Surveys has helped policy leaders make good, evidence-based decisions with state-of-the-art analytical tools. Meet Bev Russell, the force behind Social Surveys.

Communications is a key part of nonprofit work, but it is also where nonprofits typically fail to allocate sufficient resources. Communications budgets are usually small or non-existent, and the skills that staff need to properly manage something like social media is often taken for granted. Online visibility is a big part of fundraising, but it’s not magic. To be clear, you can raise some money, and run substantive campaigns online -- if you have a solid campaign strategy, skilled staff, and an appropriate budget. A donate button or a few tweets are not going to do it!