Invictus: charities benefit as goals are scored in South Africa
Howard Lake | 21 June 2010 | Blogs
On the sidelines of the world cup games, some smaller games are being played for very noble ambitions. Alyas Khan, CEO of regeneration and third/public sector outsourcing consultancy EMICA, explains how people from all walks of life in South Africa impacted by serious poverty and exclusion, are now using the World Cup to achieve their aims for a better life. Whilst the bigger charities jump on the fundraising bandwagon, they have been trying to support the smaller, unheard and unseen voices in South Africa.
Fundraising: It’s a goal…
As the goals are scored in South Africa by nations divided by geography and race, there is one common theme that is uniting poor smaller South African charities at this colourful time. Charities are benefiting from a huge increase in generosity and philanthropy during the FIFA 2010 World Cup. Many would struggle to see the links between poverty, charity, fundraising and the World Cup. However, with millions of impoverished households, endemic HIV, drug issues and a widespread scenario of disadvantage, it is perhaps no surprise that many charities in South Africa are maximising the potential of the World Cup in order to raise funding to meet the needs, wants and aspirations of local deprived people.
The creativity in fundraising accruing from the World Cup is as colourful as the teams that are represented in this ‘beautiful’ game. Emica Consulting opened its office in Africa not too long ago and is witnessing firsthand how charities are capitalising on the World Cup to maximise the fundraising efforts to raise awareness of key issues facing the population: drugs, street trafficking, exploitation, malaria, robberies and the list continues.
Our Secret Millionaires
Whilst elephants go on parade to raise funds for charities in London and businesses around the world maximise on the football slant in their adverts, in South Africa, charities are using creative mediums too, to raise funding for much needed projects. Our EMICA Africa team organised a football tournament involving over 300 street kids and ex offenders to raise money for orphans to access education- with the influx of rich and wealthy individuals from all over the world we were able to link up wealthy millionaires in our network through our well connected investment projects: www.indianinvestors.com; www.middleeastinvestors.co.uk and www.chineseinvestors.co.uk.
This union paid healthy dividends to ordinary people who otherwise would be overlooked by the larger charities. By connecting small charities with rich entrepreneurs from around the world, EMICA was able to utilise the world cup fever to promote grassroots regeneration in some of the most poverty stricken parts of South Africa – such as KwaZulu-Natal, complementing FIFA’s ‘Football for Hope’ programme. The contributions weren’t huge – but they made a difference and enabled orphans to access education.
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Promoting understanding
EMICA Africa used the opportunity afforded by the World Cup to promote cultural ties between South African’s and the visiting fans from around the world. By linking up fans and real people, we were able to highlight the plight of people in poverty and enable people to give where it really mattered bolstering fundraising efforts of smaller charities who ordinarily would really struggle. It’s the bigger players in the South African NGO scene that usually get noticed, whilst the smaller ones always struggle. Despite the many negatives associated with it, the World Cup has helped change this. The positive outcomes arising so far for charity fundraising in South Africa demonstrate that the beautiful game needn’t be ugly after all.
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.