Grant Management and Training

Our organisation provides funding to more than 520 Social Welfare and development agencies within the Western Cape Province. We assist these organisations with the maintenance and development of their services.

The Grant Allocation Process

A new allocations process runs every year from November (when applications must be submitted) to March (when allocations are announced), for funding for the new financial year beginning in April. All organisations – even existing Grant Holders – must reapply annually, and all applications are subjected to extensive internal and external scrutiny and due diligence checks.

First time applicants should submit a brief overview of their organisation and the services it renders, to see if it meets our funding ambit criteria: for instance, we don’t fund sporting or animal welfare activities, and we only fund in the Western Cape Province. If it does fall within our ambit, it will immediately become eligible for services such as Donations-inKind and our free Capacity Building courses, and will receive a Grant Application pack, mailed at the end of August.

Funding Sectors:

We provide funding to the following sectors:

1. Health Care Support Services
2. Children/ Youth Support Services
3. Early childhood Development
4. Rehabilitation
5. General family and Child Welfare
6. Community Services and Development Projects
7. Care of the Physically Disabled
8. Care of the Mentally Handicapped
9. Elderly Care and care for the Homeless
10. HIV/Aids
11. Disaster Relief

We are uniquely placed in the development sector to add value to our community. Those who invest in our organisation can be assured that their investment brings about community upliftment, empowerment and self-sufficiency:

1. Our highly efficient volunteer Grant Management Committee and systems ensures that funds made available for a specific purpose, are distributed in the most efficient way.
2. Requests are skillfully screened, vetted and monitored by professional, registered social welfare and accounting practitioners who volunteer their services.
3. Regular monitoring and supervision ensures appropriate and efficient use of the allocated funds.
4. Our extensive involvement in and knowledge of the Welfare and development sector in our Province, gives us a unique ability to identify the most pressing issues and needs for assistance.
5. The Community Chest meets most of its own running costs through interest on our investments.
6. The Community Chest’s Enhancement of capacity programme trains and assists marginalised and grassroots organisations to improve their sustainability and service delivery by becoming more financially accountable, better able to use funds effectively and increasing their ability to access funds from other donors.

Capacity Building and Training

The development of the Enhancement of Capacity (EOC) programme was a strategic decision on the part of the Community Chest to involve itself in areas of the community excluded from access to funding because of their inability to meet our application criteria. Our organisation continues to broaden its scope by reaching out to more organisations, primarily equipping them with skills in financial and business management.

Many community-based organisations (CBO´s), providing essential services at a grassroots level, struggle to survive. We noted that many of these organisations do not have the necessary information and skill, needed to successfully manage their operations and access funds. Financial accountability and sound business management practices are particularly lacking. Thus we embarked on developing the skills capacity of community-based organizations to ensure the sustainability of vital community services. This programme ensures that "the poorest of the poor" are the target of its donors´ funding.

The EOC training programme has enabled many of the organisations trained to access private and state funding. For most of these newly trained organisations, the Community Chest is their first real attempt at accessing funds from a professional grant maker.

Thus far training by the Community Chest has enabled 185 community-based organisations to access financial resources on a regular basis. One hundred and sixty four of these have received funding for more than 2 years and 45 are into their 5th year of support. These statistics prove that this programme has not only trained individuals and their organisations but also successfully enabled real capacity development. This reflects the ongoing ability and growth of these CBO-s to access funding in a sustainable manner. Courses offered in addition to the EOC:

Courses offered in addition to the EOC:

1. Project Management
2. Office Skills
3. Events Management
4. Governance development
5. Business Administration
6. Employment Relations

We invite all organisations operating in the social services and development sector to make use of our free training opportunities.