Charities Aid Foundation Southern Africa (CAFSA) is an independent civil society organisation that promotes and facilitates effective giving, volunteering and investment for social change. It has been represented in South Africa since 1997, and in 2000 became a registered Section 21 not-for-profit and public benefit organisation.
CAFSA aims to challenge existing social, economic and political inequalities by increasing resource flows to civil society organisations working in poor and marginalised communities. It believes that the civil society sector is a key element of effective democracies, providing critical support to poor and marginalised communities.
CAFSA’s activities focus on the following issues:
- Advocating for an enabling environment for philanthropy and the work of civil society organisations;
- Building the governance, leadership, and resource mobilisation capacity of civil society organisations through convening, training and knowledge development;
- Campaigning for philanthropy development across all sectors of South Africa society;
- Facilitating resource flows to civil society organisations via philanthropy, corporate social investment, and volunteering;
- Conducting due diligence analysis on behalf of donors to ensure that their resources are invested in worthy causes that generate maximum social impact;
- Advising companies on CSI programmes that integrate with core business objectives;
- Establishing Employee Community Involvement (ECI) programmes that create real benefit for communities, companies, and employees;
- Establishing and managing social investment funds on behalf of clients;
- Managing B-BBEE and tax compliance requirements;
- Assisting civil society organisations to develop funding strategies and to make the most effective use of contributed resources;
- Enabling all of the above through targeted research, information and communication services.
CAFSA maintains a database of more than 300 validated civil society organisations, working in 23 sectors, which is used to connect donors and volunteers with relevant organisations in support of Give-As-You-Earn, employee volunteering, and other projects. CAFSA has already disbursed more than R34 million since 2012 to civil society organisations in South Africa.
While being a wholly South African organisation, CAFSA is also a proud member of the CAF Global Alliance, with headquarters in the United Kingdom. The CAF Global Alliance spans six continents with offices in Australia, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, India, Russia, United Kingdom and the United States, and CAF manages over £1 billion in charitable funds. This international reach enables CAFSA to marry its unique local knowledge with the global experience of its CAF counterparts.
CAFSA is a member of Points of Light, a global network that focuses on volunteering, and is part of the NPO Collaboration Dialogue organising committee in Johannesburg. It has been a programmatic advisor to the Beyond Painting Classrooms (BPC) platform since its inception in 2012 by FirstRand, and recently also added the NPO Builder to its convening platforms.
CAFSA continues to contribute to deepening society’s understanding of philanthropy, from a global and local perspective, through the annual publication of the World Giving Index, which was first published in 2010, and the South Africa Country Giving Report, which was first published in 2017.
Contact details:
Tel: +27 11 334 0404
E-mail: info@cafsouthernafrica.org
WWW: http://www.cafsouthernafrica.org
Twitter: @sa_caf
Facebook: @CAFSouthernAfrica
LinkedIn: Charities Aid Foundation Southern Africa
This is the thirtieth NGO profile of my 2018 #NGOs4Africa Campaign.
desert2desert4socialcauses.com 
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