Build the institution, not the campaign.
Most funding in this field buys an event, a report or a year of activity. Then it stops, and the knowledge goes with it. We are asking for something harder, and far more useful.
Anybody can fund a moment. Almost nobody funds the thing that is still standing in fifty years.
What we are building is a body of knowledge: hundreds of African lives, documented deeply and consistently, over decades. Nobody has that. Not the rankings, the awards or the universities.
In five years it can answer questions no ranking can. What do Africans who build lasting institutions have in common? What causes promising people to fail? That is what a partner funds. Not our visibility.
Where you fit.
For people asking which institution can create lasting African impact beyond a single project, and who will fund the unglamorous parts.
For companies who want to learn from the people shaping Africa's future, and who know credibility here comes from restraint, not logo placement.
Contribute researchers, method and academic rigour, in exchange for access to material that does not exist anywhere else.
Carry this work to audiences we cannot reach on our own, in languages we do not yet publish in.
Five things, each fundable on its own.
Costs are set per programme and per year. We send them, with the budget, before the second conversation.
The Journal
The editorial engine: finding the people, the travel, interviews, photography, checking and editing. The most visible thing we do, and the cheapest to fund.
A Fellowship cohort
A named group of Africans, assessed honestly and worked with on what they are actually building. The clearest place to see what your money did.
The Archive
Recording, transcription, storage, cataloguing and permissions, done from the first interview. The least glamorous part, and the part that still exists in 2060.
Research
Turning the archive into knowledge, with universities that want material nobody else holds. Where a knowledge partner gives people, not only money.
A named series
For a partner thinking in decades: records in one field, funded beyond any single agreement. Your name on the support, never on the judgement.
What a partner receives, and what they do not.
You receive
- Your name on it, clearly and for good.
- Everything we learn, including research findings.
- Time with the people we write about and develop.
- Real numbers on what your money did. Not impressions.
You do not receive
- A say in the writing, or sight of a record before it is published.
- A say in who is chosen. Your nomination weighs what anybody's does.
- The institution as your platform. It carries no organisation's brand.
- Our silence. If we find something about your sector, we publish it.
Tell us what you care about. We will send the budget, the plan and the honest version of what we do not know yet.
There is no donate button, deliberately. If you would rather simply give, say so in the form and we will send bank details.
Rather talk than type? Put thirty minutes in the diary.