CivSource Africa has for the past year walked the journey of researching, activating, and enabling community philanthropy through a philanthropic vehicle known as a community foundation. Community Foundations are designed to pool donations and resources into a coordinated investment and grant making facility dedicated primarily to serving the development and social needs of people and groups in a given locality. This model is relevant even more in this day and age as we shift the power back to communities, that are well-able and knowledgeable about their needs and can garner resources from within and without to address these needs.
In a bid to support the building of a movement of Community Foundations (CFs) in Uganda, CivSource Africa, enable by the CS Mott Foundation partnered with over forty (40) CFs in the first phase (6 months) of the project and the five (5) viable CFs in the second phase of the pilot. All the CFs are based in Kampala and Wakiso districts in Central Uganda.
While CFs are not new in Uganda, the concept of Community Foundations as independent philanthropic actors was a relatively new concept to the organisations which took part in the pilot. Building on the research work done in 2021 by CivSource Africa that sought to analyze CFs in Kampala and Wakiso districts in Central Uganda, CivSource Africa has engaged with both national and regional partners to foster discussions on CFs and their role in development. In Central Uganda, 105 CFs were engaged on the concept of community foundations during the study. However, for the pilot phase, forty-six (46) CFs were studiously selected and categorically divided into four specific groups based on their structures and processes. The latter part of the project then focused on an in-depth analysis of the CFs concept specific to documenting impact and Local resource mobilization within their communities with five (5) viable CFs i.e., 3 from Wakiso and 2 from Kampala district. Read more