In Brief: African Visionary Fund offers $1M core support to local organizations

In a bid to support “​chronically under-funded African-led organizations,” the new African Visionary Fund — established only last year — has committed to providing over $1 million in flexible funding to six organizations. The organizations, which work across a variety of key sectors such as education, health, human rights, and livelihoods, will receive general operating support over a period of three years. Who’s getting money: The six organizations — ​Barefoot Law​, ​Dandelion Africa​, ​Rays of Hope​, SaCoDé​, ​Shule Direct, and ​Wezesha Impact​ — are geographically diverse with broad representation across sectors. They are all “African-led and Africa-based, and demonstrate good organizational governance, sound financial management and organizational resilience,” according to AVFund. Where it’s coming from: AVFund’s mission is “to drive more funding to African visionaries to accelerate their impact” since “grant-making is often biased and unjust. Foreign-led organizations in Africa still receive the bulk of funding at the expense of local organizations.” It is structured as a purpose fund at The King Baudouin Foundation United States and also receives funding from the Skoll Foundation, Thankyou, Peery Foundation, and others. Why it matters: Katie Bunten-Wamaru, AVFund’s co-CEO, says there is a very strong impact case for investing in locally-led organizations. But as of 2017, local and national NGOs received less than ​1% of international humanitarian funding, according to Development Initiatives, despite the many initiatives and pledges to increase this. What to watch: The fund aims to raise $10 million by 2023 to support more African organizations. It says there are varied and overlapping issues that have allowed funding inequity to persist. The key to addressing these is to “peel away” those “interlocking factors” within the sector, including bias, racism, and colonialism, Bunten-Wamaru said.