Funding

Approaching Ikhala Trust

Ikhala Trust will support small community based organisations in the Eastern Cape Province that can clearly identify skills, abilities, capacities and assets which community members they work with can contribute to the project. We are particularly interested in how you will discover and use the gifts and abilities of marginalized members of your community. We are interested in learning how you will mobilize, utilize, enhance and expand these local capacities to ensure your success.

Please check the Criteria below carefully. If you feel that your organisation fits the Criteria you may write or type us a letter seeking assistance. We will email or deliver you an application form which you must  fill in and return to us with all the necessary documents as soon as possible. If any assistance is required with the filling out of the Application Form, please do not hesitate to contact Vuyokazi at 041-5850970 or contact us.

Criteria

  1. The Project must be located in a disadvantaged urban or rural community
  2. The Project must be at least 6 to 12 months old
  3. The Project must be run by an official committee appointed by the local community but that is separate from the people who work in the project
  4. The Project must be registered or is seeking registration with the Dept of Social Development’s, NPO Directorate
  5. The Project must have a Bank Account with a recognized banking institution
  6. The Project has received little or no funding from outside sources and
    1. Operate within an annual budget of not more than R250 000.00 per annum.
    2. I khala Trust will not contribute more than R30 000 towards the annual budget
  7. The members of the community must have contributed in cash or kind to the Project
  8. The Project must keep records of all financial transactions
  9. The Project must be willing to work with organisations with similar objectives
  10. The Project must meet a real local need identified by the community

Support community based organisations who are involved in the following areas:-

  • Youth development including youth with intellectual and physical disabilities
  • Women’s Empowerment programmes including skills training and income-generating projects
  • Food security including vegetable household and community gardens and nutritional programmes
  • Social Justice – including the promotion and upholding of human rights
  • Citizen engagement programmes using a strengths based approach

What Ikhala Trust does not Fund

  1. Emergency funds to meet shortfalls, loans or stand security for loans
  2. Individual studies or studies abroad
  3. For-profit organizations
  4. Payment of accounts in arrears i.e. Eskom, Telkom and any other such bills

What Small Grants Can Do

Appropriate grant size is critical. Many promising organizations have been overwhelmed by the demands of donors who make large grants and insist on significant scale-up while undermining local leadership and community paced-development. Organisations need time to develop their structures and programmes based on internal values and decision-making.

  • Small grants encourage action and innovation and investment in creative leaders.
  • Small grants act as a developmental tool – the mere application process is developmental in itself.
  • Small grants help to build local ownership.
  • Small grants also serve as an effective strategy for bridging what was often a disconnect between people and more mainstream types of development.

Some More About Small Grants

  • Small grants are not seed money.
  • They are scale-appropriate investments that build civic capacity and community resilience by activating the passion, dreams, skills, talents and networks of community residents.
  • Small grants are not for larger, professionally staffed non-profit organisations. They are for people who are connecting with their neighbours to do something that they feel has value in their own community. Not people working on behalf of other people, but people who are working together on behalf of their own community. They are designed to fund the informal groups that people form to work together or the smaller non-profits that are designed to facilitate a group’s work on a more on-going basis.
  • Small grants are not about service delivery. They are about self-help and community connectedness rather than the help that comes from professionals and experts.
  • Small grants are not about doing more with less. They are about helping people discover their own power and the power of community with the goal of bringing more resources to play – the resources and resourcefulness of community residents.
  • Small grants are not an end. They are a means to an end, with the means – the process of doing – at least as important as the end product of the doing.
  • (Extract from www.grassrootsgrantmakers.org)