The Future of African Diaspora Funding with Jermaine Craig | Ep 6

Season 2
Written By Pam Cheney

Today’s conversation is with Jermaine Craig, the founder of Kwanda, a funding platform that connects members of the African diaspora based in the UK and North America with grassroots projects in Africa that they can fund and support beyond cash. 

Now this isn't about charity in the traditional sense. In fact, it's a practical and authentic challenge to the status quo. Kwanda was set up to support entrepreneurs in Africa who are responding thoughtfully to the daily frictions in their lives. 

Jermaine's view is that traditional funders and non profits neither understand nor trust Africans to build and scale solutions to their problems, so they're not equipped to support these local entrepreneurs. This is where Kwanda comes in, investing in entrepreneurs in Africa and telling the stories of their impact.

Some of the key points from my discussion with Jermaine include:

  • Jermaine speaks of the importance of shifting from traditional aid models to sustainable, community centred solutions that highlight local innovation 

  • the use of technology and automation to help in reducing time and increasing efficiency for tasks such as proposal generation and donor communications

  • Jermaines plans to expand Kwanda’s reach to new countries and a diverse range of projects

Kwanda is a brilliant, simple, and authentic concept, and I know you’ll enjoy listening to Jermaine share openly, the highs and lows of his own journey in social entrepreneurship.

For  more detailed reflections on this conversation with Jermaine, head to our blog which can be accessed via the website at https://www.fundraisingradicals.com/blog

Resources and links mentioned in this episode:

 I hope you've enjoyed listening to this episode of the Fundraising Radicals podcast and that this conversation has challenged, informed, and maybe even inspired you and your fundraising leadership practice. 

This podcast has been made possible by the Scaling Up Nutrition Civil Society Network, Care International, the Ashmore Foundation, and our growing community of strategic partners.

We're excited to explore and share alternative views and experiences so we can all move beyond the narrow experiences that dominate global fundraising practise today so that we're all better equipped to resource our causes and communities wherever in the world we are.

Please do subscribe to the podcast on the platform of your choice. 

New episodes drop on the 1st & 15th of every month, so make sure to tune in to get more global perspectives on fundraising and leadership in the non-profit sector.

More about Fundraising Radicals:

If you want to find out all the ways in which we’re working to empower, equip and engage fundraisers all over the world:

And we're always looking for new perspectives. So if you would be willing to share some of your experience of global fundraising within a future episode of the podcast, please do email us. It's [email protected]

Pam Cheney

Graphic Designer and traveller

Previous

Inspiring a New Generation in Burundi with Dieudonné Nahimana | Ep 7
Next

Funding Partnerships for Advocacy in Malawi with Bessie Ndovi | Ep 5