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Indaba Foundation

The Indaba ecosystem
Children hold out their hands as an adult places seeds in their palms outdoors.

Partnership models

Build the system with us.

Philanthropy is at its best when it pays for what others cannot yet fund: the people, standards and evidence that let a community run excellent early learning for itself. Choose the part of the system you want to build.

Start a conversationSee the evidence

Four tracks

What you can fund.

Each track can be funded on its own. Where tracks share a cost, such as facilitator training or measurement, we show it once and say which organisation spends it.

The economics of excellence

Excellent, and affordable at scale.

Training the adult is the lever. A teacher trained once can shape the beginnings of hundreds of children over a career, so the cost per child falls the longer she teaches. Here is the costed three-year national plan, line by line, with what sits outside it.

Costed national plan, three years US$5M

  1. US$3.8MTeacher trainingPedagogy, materials, mentoring, certification and quality assurance for 1 470 teachers: 210, 420 and 840 a year.
  2. US$78KQuality bufferHeld against delivery risk.
  3. US$300KFacilitator-in-Training pipeline
  4. US$180KFundraising enablement
  5. US$160KPractice tools for teachers
  6. US$140KMonitoring, evaluation and impact
  7. US$150KStandards and operating system
  8. US$170KLocal leadership and co-leadership
  1. 1 470teachers trained
  2. 44 100children in their classrooms in each teacher’s first year
  3. 248 430children they could teach over their careers
All-in cost per teacher trained
US$3 401
Per child in a teacher’s first year
US$113
Per child taught over a teacher’s career
US$20
Target range US$10–30US$20

  • Per child taught: the whole US$5M divided by about 248 430 relationships (1 470 teachers × 169 children over a career). One child may be counted by more than one teacher, so this is not a count of unique children.
  • First-year figure: 1 470 teachers × 30 children, added up across the three cohorts' first years. It is not a single year's total.
  • Not included: the running costs of the centres, the Indaba Institute's campus and Indaba Ventures' products. No independent cost-effectiveness study exists yet.
  • The plan is adapted from a costed proposal under discussion with a national partner. Nothing is signed, and the target range is Indaba's ambition, not a measured cost.

Model, not a result Planning estimates from Indaba's costed national plan; not measured costs.

Become an Impact Partner

Track 1 in detail

Released year by year, against gates.

A proposal prepared for partners: planning estimates, not signed agreements or results.

  1. Year 1

    First cohort

    Teachers trained and mentored, the facilitator pipeline started, a measured baseline set.

  2. Gate

    Reviewed with funders

    Year 2 proceeds only if the first cohort meets agreed completion, practice-quality and child-assessment gates.

  3. Years 2 and 3

    Larger cohorts

    More teachers each year, with local facilitators taking on more of the training, each year gated in the same way.

  4. Lasting

    System capacity

    Facilitator pipeline, standards, measurement and local fundraising capacity remain after the programme.

Detailed use of funds and milestones are shared with partners on request.

The wider initiative

Beyond the Foundation.

Partnership models

One mission, different ways in.

  • Family foundations and philanthropists

    Catalytic grants

    Fund what is hardest to fund: the first node, the facilitator pipeline, independent evidence. Multi-year commitments let us plan whole cohorts.

  • Companies

    Programmes near your people

    Fund cohorts in the communities where your staff and customers live. The Foundation is a US 501(c)(3); for South African companies, the receiving organisation and any tax or B-BBEE treatment are confirmed in writing before any commitment.

  • Governments and municipalities

    Public programmes, better prepared

    Bring the training, mentoring and quality system into existing early childhood programmes, with in-kind support such as venues and transport.

  • NGOs and agencies

    Co-delivered deployment

    Combine an established partner's reach with CoRE's training and quality system, under shared standards and independent evaluation.

How we count

Clear numbers for serious partners.

  1. Pipeline is not funding

    We report proposals, signed agreements, funds received and funds spent separately.

  2. One dollar, one count

    Indaba's Foundation, Institute and Ventures each count only their own contributions.

  3. Trained is not the same as lasting

    We report teachers trained, completion and retention as different figures.

  4. Modelled reach is labelled

    Children reached over a teacher's career is a projection, and always shown as one.

Questions

Good to know.

Is any of this investment?

No. Support for the Foundation is philanthropy: gifts and grants, never investor capital. Investment opportunities in Indaba Ventures are separate and presented only to invited partners.

Can I fund one part only?

Yes. Each track stands on its own, and restricted gifts are used for the purpose they were given for.

Who receives a gift from the United States?

The Indaba Foundation, a 501(c)(3) organisation (U.S. Federal Tax ID #47-1713004). Gifts are tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law.

Start a conversation

Tell us what you would like to build.

We will reply with what exists for the track that interests you: the evidence, the plan and, where one has been prepared, a budget.

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