From Funding Projects to Funding Possibilities: Rethinking Philanthropy for Systemic Change
By Sibongile Maepa, Grantmaking Lead, Trevor Noah Foundation
Innovation for lasting change
South Africa faces deep-rooted, persistent educational and social challenges. Simultaneously, traditional sources of international development funding are becoming increasingly uncertain. Philanthropy needs to move beyond asking “what project should we fund?” and start asking, “what conditions, organisations and innovations need to be supported to enable lasting change?” It is this challenge that the Trevor Noah Foundation’s Khulani Nathi Innovation Fund (KNIF) seeks to respond to: creating the conditions for organisations and innovations to grow, adapt, learn and contribute to broader systems change.
The KNIF was established in 2025 and is rooted in a recognition that many organisations closest to communities are already developing innovative responses to persistent education challenges. The Fund exists not simply to finance interventions, but to provide the type of capital that enables organisations with promising education innovations to flourish and impact sustainably on the education sector.
The Fund has received more than 580 applications up to date and is supporting a first cohort of 14 Grantee Partners. With grants of up to R3 million over three years, the Fund is designed to provide meaningful, longer-term capital to organisations working across two strategic areas: teacher development and youth pathways.
Venture philanthropy and traditional grantmaking
The KNIF provides multi-year, flexible, unrestricted and trust-based funding that backs organisations and their capacity to adapt, rather than narrowly funding predetermined activities. As opposed to traditional project funding, which funds a defined activity against a defined budget and set of outputs, KNIF provides organisations with greater autonomy to determine how resources should be deployed.
We have realised that different problems require different forms of capital. Grant funding to support activities is not enough – for systemic change, organisations need resources for technology, people, organisational systems, strategic development and partnerships to respond to unexpected opportunities. In addition to the flexible grant funding and capacity-strengthening support provided by KNIF, Microsoft Elevate brings complementary grant funding to 5 of the 14 KNIF grantees, and technical support – technology, digital skills and tools – to all 14 grantees. Together, these resources complement each other by providing financial support while strengthening organisational capacity and digital capability, enabling grantees to maximise their impact.
One example is iSchool Africa’s Hospital School Programme, which is creating opportunities for learners receiving medical care to remain connected to learning through digital education. This programme at the George Mukhari Academic Hospital, is supported through KNIF and Microsoft Elevate, illustrates how funding can be complemented by technology and partnership support as an organisation takes an innovation into new contexts.
The Fund has also been designed to incorporate trust-based relationships; organisational and capacity-building support; peer learning; intentional stakeholder and funder connections; and learning and adaptation rather than rigid compliance.
This allows partners to respond to changing circumstances while remaining accountable for their broader goals and impact.
Shaping the funding ecosystem
The current funding crisis creates an uncomfortable and uncertain reality for many organisations, while also creating an opportunity and a responsibility for African philanthropic funders to become more deliberate architects of the funding ecosystem.
For African philanthropy, this is also about agency: strengthening the ability of African funders and locally rooted organisations to shape priorities, define what meaningful support looks like and build relationships that are grounded in local context. It means moving beyond being primarily a recipient of external capital or a delivery partner for externally defined priorities, towards a more active role in shaping the systems, networks and forms of capital that support African-led solutions.
This calls for African philanthropy to invest in organisational resilience, community-rooted solutions and stronger African funding networks; reduce unnecessary administrative burdens; facilitate access to additional sources of capital; and support organisations to navigate uncertainty rather than expecting them to operate as though the environment is predictable.
The current funding environment presents an opportunity for South African philanthropy to reconsider not only how much capital we deploy, but the kind of capital we provide, the relationships we build and the ecosystems we help create.
Doing things differently
For TNF this ambition is expressed through KNIF. It is an attempt to move from funding projects to backing organisations; from prescribing solutions to supporting locally rooted innovation; and from transactional grantmaking towards relationships built on trust, flexibility, learning and shared accountability.
No single funder can create systemic change alone. The opportunity before us is to build a funding ecosystem in which philanthropy is willing to share risk, collaborate across institutional boundaries and give African organisations the resources, autonomy and relationships they need to lead change.
Our early experience of implementing KNIF has also reinforced a few emerging lessons. One is that flexible capital is most useful when it is paired with the right relationships and non-financial support, including capacity strengthening, peer learning and strategic connections. The model therefore requires funders to listen continuously, learn alongside partners and adapt their support as needs and opportunities evolve.
Trust as a solid foundation
Flexibility is only meaningful when it is accompanied by trust. At the heart of KNIF is a recognition that organisations closest to communities often possess knowledge and expertise that funders do not have. They understand the nuances of local context, relationships and barriers that shape whether an intervention will work. Trust-based funding, therefore, means creating a relationship in which the funder does not assume that it has all the answers.
Trust is reflected in how grantee partners are funded, engaged and supported. Multi-year unrestricted funding gives organisations greater agency over the use of resources, while lighter-touch reporting reduces unnecessary administrative burdens. At the same time, ongoing engagement, learning and shared accountability create opportunities for TNF and grantee partners to understand what is working, what is changing and where additional support may be required.
Trust-based philanthropy should not be confused with the absence of due diligence or accountability. Rather, it asks whether the requirements placed on organisations are proportionate and whether they enable or inhibit the outcomes philanthropy is trying to achieve.
Ultimately, if we expect organisations to innovate, adapt and take risks, philanthropy must also be willing to share some of that risk.
Organisational and ecosystem strength
The sustainability of an initiative such as KNIF cannot simply mean that organisations continue receiving funding indefinitely. A more meaningful question is whether the funding helps build organisations, relationships, knowledge and ecosystems that can continue to generate value beyond the life of a particular grant.
KNIF therefore seeks to contribute to sustainability by strengthening organisational capacity, supporting learning and adaptation, facilitating peer learning and creating intentional connections between innovation partners, funders and other stakeholders.
The aim is to help organisations become better positioned to navigate uncertainty, respond to opportunities and build relationships that can unlock additional resources and influence. This is also why collaboration is essential. Building stronger organisations is important, but lasting change also depends on the relationships and networks that connect organisations to one another and to the wider ecosystem. For example, KNIF grantee partners working in one of the key strategic focus areas, i.e., teacher development, could benefit from connections with other organisations in the education ecosystem, education funders and strategic partners with complementary expertise. These connections create opportunities for peer learning, collaboration and access to additional resources beyond the grant itself.
KNIF is an experiment in what that future could look like. It is an invitation to rethink the role of philanthropy in uncertain times: not simply as a provider of grants, but as a partner in building the conditions for lasting change.
The question facing philanthropy is no longer only what we fund. It is also how we fund, who we trust, what we enable, and what kind of ecosystem we want to build together.
That is where the possibility for systemic change begins.