General Purposes

About this grant

The current challenges facing South Africa, particularly marginalized communities, include poverty, unemployment, crime and HIV/AIDS. Recent figures place unemployment at 40 to 50 percent of the population; the number of people living with HIV is estimated to be 4.5 million. In response, large numbers of community-based nonprofit organizations have been established. Unfortunately, these organizations have little infrastructure, no access to technology and often cannot meet the formal requirements of funders. There is a critical need to building the capacity of these organizations.Multiyear funding will support efforts to provide organizational development training and capacity-building programs for approximately 60 community-based organizations in the Western Cape. The goal of the project is to assist these organizations to understand their roles, write proposals, and develop policies and systems; and strengthen their capacity to initiate and manage development processes in their communities.Connections is a membership-based nonprofit that works to address the issues of poverty by providing organizational skills and capacity building for community-based organizations.