African Venture Philanthropy Alliance (AVPA)

The African Venture Philanthropy Alliance (AVPA) is a unique Pan-African network for social investors, headquartered in Nairobi and committed to building a vibrant and high impact community across Africa. AVPA is aligned with thriving networks in Europe (EVPA - HQ in Brussels with 254 members) and Asia (AVPN HQ in Singapore with 503 members) to form a dynamic global force for social impact. They believe in the transformative power of social investment – the deployment of capital for social ends utilizing a disciplined approach that increases transparency and accountability. Effective social investment can generate significant impact through different types of innovative organizations – from non-profits to social enterprises to full-fledged businesses – yielding vastly different financial returns, from negative (grants) to low (loans) to full market rates (impact investments.) Over the past decades, wealth in Africa has grown dramatically and with it comes a new breed of investor looking to tackle many of the continent’s glaring social, environmental and economic challenges. From companies looking to improve their CSR practice to high net worth individuals looking to change the world, the AVPA platform engages and connects members across sectors and borders; provides practical, customized frameworks, tools and knowledge to build their effectiveness; and facilitates collaboration and partnership to create real and lasting change for Africa. AVPA leverages the 13-year successful experience and momentum of the European Venture Philanthropy Association (evpa.eu.com) and the Asian Venture Philanthropy Network (avpn.asia) – thriving networks that together have over 600 members in 52 countries and are proven catalysts for mobilizing capital and helping members to deploy it more effectively to drive positive change. At the same time, the AVPA is an independent African-led organization that adapts and modifies these models to succeed in Africa’s unique context. AVPA facilitates the flow of human, intellectual and financial capital, not only within Africa, but also with the vast network of members across the 52 countries outside of Africa. This matters because traditional approaches to addressing major social challenges, fuelled primarily by philanthropy and government spending, will not be sufficient to solve the problems of today and tomorrow. Social Investment is absolutely critical for Africa to fulfil its potential at the speed needed to address the acute challenges it faces. Vastly expanded amounts of capital driving innovative, high-impact solutions are needed across Africa, with much greater levels of efficiency and sustainability. Accomplishing this is AVPA’s vision. MISSION The core mission of AVPA is to improve lives in Africa by increasing the flow of financial, human and intellectual capital to social investment and by enabling investors to deploy their capital more effectively. VISION Their vision is to one day realize a vibrant, high impact social investment community across Africa—a landscape where providers of capital collaborate to help social purpose organizations (SPOs) deliver maximum social value.