Established in June 2006, the Multi-Agency Grants Initiative (MAGI) is a collaborative venture between Humanist Institute for Co-operation with Developing Countries (HIVOS), Atlantic Philanthropies, Uthando and the Ford Foundation. The purpose of the fund is to provide a responsive mechanism for the provision of small grant funding to organisations at community level within South Africa.
MAGI promotes a stronger and more sustainable CBO sector through grant making support, capacity building, brokering of services, partnership-building and monitoring and evaluation. The participation of a number of donors in the initiative ensures sharing of resources, a reduction of overheads and increased effectiveness. The partnership has been set up with the explicit objective of developing best-practice methodologies and providing a model for indigenous grant-making capacity.
SECTORS: The focus of the fund is on the following sectors:
Arts and Culture :
Activities that have a clearly articulated development component such as addressing social issues. These activities must be linked to issues addressed in the sectors below.
Farm workers & Rural livelihoods :
Focus on projects supporting and promoting the basic human rights of farm workers and the rural poor and projects advocating on behalf of this group
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Rights :
Emerging groups or organisations in communities that focus on safe-spaces, mainstreaming and promoting LGBT rights, awareness-raising and consciousness-raising activities, capacity-building and networking.
Refugee Rights :
Focus on projects promoting rights awareness and protection of marginalised migrant groups, including refugees & asylum seekers. (Unsolicited applications are not accepted for this category).
Groups and organisations must be constituted and have a written constitution.
The groups must demonstrate that some activities have taken place successfully.
Applicants must demonstrate a community contribution either volunteer time, funds or material. A value must be attributed to this.
There must be a clear outline of the participation of women in leadership and decision making, as well as the specific outcomes for women in terms of empowerment and benefits (where applicable).
There must be a clear demonstration that the project is operating in an area of identified needs.
Benefits to the community must be clearly defined.
Institutional costs subject to an appraisal by the project officer and the approval of the allocations committee
Capacity building and training
Direct programme and activity costs
Workshops
Events
Small infrastructure development
Exchange visits and peer learning
Small items of equipment
One off events related to any of the above sectors
