A Quiet Funder Shares How It's Fighting COVID-19 in Africa, and Urges Others to Step Up

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The ELMA Group of Foundations isn’t often in the news. Robyn Calder Harawi, executive director of its services arm, the ELMA Philanthropies, said that’s intentional. The organization generally chooses to operate behind the scenes and let the work speak for itself. But like nearly everything else, that paradigm shifted when a pandemic wrapped itself around the globe, buffeting the continent where the majority of ELMA’s work takes place. 

Last May, the ELMA Group of Foundations pledged ZAR 2 billion, or roughly $137 million USD, to fight COVID-19 in Africa—a number the group considers a “minimum commitment” that it’ll “likely exceed.” That’s in addition to its ongoing work, which it says already puts it among Africa’s largest private philanthropies. 

The group’s been firing on all cylinders during the pandemic. Calder Harawi said she has come to see ELMA’s work over the past 15 years as “gearing ourselves up to respond to the biggest crisis of our lifetime.” That means deploying the full resources of the six foundations under the ELMA umbrella to mount an effective response to the loss of life and livelihoods, and working across nonprofits, NGOs, governments and academia to deliver on goals.

Calder Harawai thinks meeting the crisis means all philanthropists need to do things differently, and urges others to step up. “Five percent payouts aren’t the solution,” she said. “Nor is business as usual.” 

Here’s how ELMA is using local knowledge, deeply established relationships and the concerted efforts of the entire organization to stop the spread on a continent that could see 1 billion COVID cases and 2.5 million deaths. 

A unique structure  

The ELMA Group of Foundations was founded in 2005 by Clive Calder to improve the lives of Africa’s children. Calder, a billionaire who was once one of the biggest music producers in the world, co-founded the Zomba Group in 1975 and sold it in 2002. In its day, Zomba’s independent record label, Jive Records, repped some of the biggest hip hop and teen pop artists of the times: Billy Ocean, the Cars, Will Smith, R. Kelly, N’Sync and the Backstreet Boys. 

Why Africa? Calder Harawi said the group’s founders chose to work on the continent for two reasons. Yes, they were from Africa, and wanted to contribute to the land where they were born. But they also saw great opportunities for impact. Pervasive, extensive need existed alongside a tremendous upside for change. If “managed appropriately, resources could go further in Africa.” 

ELMA has an unusual structure by American standards. The ELMA Group of Foundations boasts six separate entities and a services group. Each was established offshore, and they do not generate 990s or other typical financial reporting—an opaque architecture that’s more often seen in business.

Calder Harawi says the structure allows ELMA to take a “very flexible approach” to projects, and to deeply engage in a wide range of partnerships with co-funders, governments, nonprofits, NGOs and educational institutions. Part of the mindset is to “think like an investor” from the private equity world and achieve flexible, responsible collaborations. ELMA also values rigorous due diligence.

The roughly 50-member global team of ELMA’s services arm, ELMA Philanthropies, develops strategies, identifies and vets investment opportunities, monitors performance and manages strategic partnerships for the six foundations within its group.

The group includes the following foundations: the ELMA Foundation, which works to improve the lives of children in Africa; the ELMA Relief Foundation, which funds disaster relief and recovery around the globe, with a focus on Africa; the ELMA South Africa Foundation, which specifically focuses on advancing that country’s development; the ELMA Growth Foundation, which makes capacity-building investments to improve the lives of low-income Africans; the ELMA Vaccines & Immunization Foundation, which invests in expanding immunization coverage for children, mostly in Africa; and the ELMA Music Foundation, which generally supports organizations that use music to improve outcomes for children in Africa and the United States.

Within the ELMA Foundation, the ELMA Community Grants Program provides emergency support to more than 100 community-based organizations in Southern and Eastern Africa.

Immediate relief

As a second wave and a South African COVID variant crash across the continent, ELMA is employing a range of interventions, from small local investments and co-funding partnerships to big bets on government and educational organizations, while being “as flexible and responsive as possible” to active grantees.

Grants from the ELMA Relief Foundation are global in nature, with a specific focus on Africa. During COVID, the foundation has continued to support big-league humanitarian organizations like the International Rescue Committee (IRC) and the Alliance for International Medical Action (ALIMA).

It has also taken on new partners and provided rapid emergency support to existing grantees across the ELMA group. ELMA Relief supports co-funding partnerships, like the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI) project to introduce rapid point-of-care antigen testing in 16 African countries, and builds government inroads for a coordinated response in Ethiopia, South Africa and other hotspots. The foundation also backs direct giving through GiveDirectly, fully funding remote cash transfers to 300,000 affected Africans living in Kenya and Togo. 

Research and educational partnerships have also aided the response. Dr. Christian Happi, director of ACEGID, the African Centre of Excellence for Genomics for Infectious Diseases at Redeemer’s University in Nigeria, said the foundation’s backing has been a game-changer that allowed its scientists “to quickly sequence the first genome of SARS-CoV-2 in Africa, 72 hours after the first case in Nigeria was reported.” Calling its early support “unparalleled,” Happi credits ELMA with providing “the lifeline needed to operate and make an impact, allowing the Nigerian public health authorities to use our genomic data and respond to COVID-19.” 

Supporting South Africa

The lion’s share of ELMA’s COVID-19 investment in South Africa, nearly $17 million USD, supported a single effort, the South African Solidarity Response Fund, which backs the governmental response and helps mobilize civic resources. The ELMA South Africa Foundation also granted an equal amount to 14 other NGOs whose work runs the gamut from stemming gender-based violence to providing social services for refugees and supporting a partnership responding to COVID in correctional facilities. 

A focus on children

Grants directly related to children are made through the ELMA Foundation, which Calder Harawi said has deployed most of ELMA’s COVID funding. Funded projects include boosting a remote learning platform with the Aga Kahn Foundation and addressing child and family food insecurity through the ACFS Community Education & Feeding Scheme’s 13 community centers. The foundation also recognizes the importance of supporting the adults that care for children, joining efforts like Gates Philanthropy Partners’ Therapeutics and Diagnostic Accelerator, which works to develop new COVID-19 therapies and testing in low- and middle-income countries. For children to thrive, Calder Harawi said, so must adults. 

Leveraging local knowledge

As a funder with local knowledge and roots, ELMA plays to its strengths with The ELMA Community Grants Program (ECGP), a portfolio that supports the front-line emergency responders embedded in local communities. 

Calder Harawi said ELMA’s CBO grants were set up about 10 years ago in South Africa, following the philosophy that investment is needed at the community level where governments and large NGOs don’t reach. Grantees provide for the essential needs of children—and the adults that support them—mostly in Southern and Eastern Africa. 

The program’s partners include about 130 CBOs. So far, Calder Harawi says ELMA has carried out two rounds of emergency funding, in May and December. All funding was unrestricted, thanks to a level of trust already established through strong due diligence processes.

Long and deep community relationships help CBOs deliver services in meaningful ways, like disseminating culturally relevant safety guidance. The Bulungula Incubator, a rural development NGO in the Eastern Cape, produced a poster that shows a man socially distancing while delivering food to a resident sitting outside a hut. “When bringing food to the elder,” it advises, “put the pot down at the gate.” Both the giver and receiver are wearing masks.

Calder Harawi said that Bulungula started as a backpacker lodge and is now owned by the community from which it hires cooks, librarians, teachers and support staff. Programming has substantially reduced childhood mortality, while lifting the quality of life for the people in Nqileni and neighboring villages.

Other ELMA grantees like Centre Marembo in Rwanda partnered with the government to design similarly impactful posters, while youth-led Africa Directions employed its local expertise to create pamphlets, posters and local radio spots in Zambia.  

The program also puts capacity building on the table by helping CBOs manage their finances, underwriting tools like a first financial review to help them gain additional funders. 

Among its peers

Africa has drawn the support of major philanthropic players for years, and that work has accelerated during the pandemic. 

For example, the Mastercard Foundation has been funding in Africa for more than a decade, and currently works in 29 countries across the continent. Last April, it rallied behind its African partners by launching a COVID-19 Recovery and Resilience Program to meet urgent needs and “double down” on economic recovery. 

In June, the Mastercard Foundation committed $40 million to Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), which works to strengthen Africa’s public health institutions and create partnerships to respond to rising health threats. Now, its two central aims have evolved to supporting healthcare workers and first responders, and providing emergency funding for students.

The Rockefeller Foundation, an iconic global public health funder, established its Africa Regional Office in 1966 and directs nearly a third of its resources there. Last April, the foundation committed “at least” $50 million in resources over two years to help its partners in Asia, Africa and the U.S. battle COVID-19. 

In February, the foundation announced a three-year, billion-dollar pledge to “help end the COVID-19 pandemic in Africa and for us all.” Four months later, it invested nearly $35 million toward response efforts in Africa, with a focus on ensuring equitable access to testing and vaccines, leveraging innovation and data, addressing food insecurity and scaling renewable energy. 

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation made its first grant in Ethiopia more than two decades ago, and opened an office there in 2012. Its $1.7 billion global pandemic defense aims to slow transmission, develop therapeutics and vaccines, and ensure equitable access. 

In December, Gates announced a $47.5 million investment in country-specific and regional responses to rising cases in Africa and South Asia, and made up to $75 million in financing available from its Strategic Investment Fund for manufacturing, treatments and diagnostics in low- and middle-income countries. In 2021, Gates’ focus has zeroed in on ensuring the equitable, timely and scalable delivery of proven interventions. 

As these funders step up, Calder Harawi reports that 60% of ELMA’s COVID-19 commitments have already been deployed. In the coming months, the group is “poised to commit all of this… in order to respond to the massively urgent nature of the pandemic,” amid “the rise of new variants and continued health and economic devastation.” 

“We hope others with resources will step up as well,” she said.