Kresge Advancement Initiative

I can honestly say that if it wasn’t for this initiative we would not have seen the capacity enhancement in the Development and Fundraising Office and the Alumni Office this past year. It has given us direction and helped us map processes of crucial importance in our fundraising drive - and that is only one year.
~ Karen Coetzee, Senior Manager: Development and Fundraising, University of Johannesburg


Inyathelo has worked in partnership with the US-based Kresge Foundation over the past 10 years to help develop and bolster the private fundraising and Advancement efforts of universities in South Africa.

The first Kresge Special Initiative between 2006 and 2010 helped five high profile South African institutions - namely the University of the Witswatersrand (Wits); the University of Pretoria (UP); the University of the Western Cape (UWC); the Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT) and the Children’s Hospital Trust - increase their private fundraising revenue threefold.

The four universities then joined the Kresge Leader University Initiative which will see them receive an additional$250,000 between 2012 - 2016 to continue developing their Advancement operations. They will also act as mentors to a new group of universities which are part of the second Kresge-Inyathelo Advancement Initiative.

The new cohort includes Durban University of Technology (DUT), Tshwane University of Technology (TUT), University of Johannesburg (UJ) and the University of the Free State (UFS). This initiative also aims to strengthen the Advancement operations in South African universities and will run until 2018.

Breakfast Report-10 Inyathelo Conference Meeting-13 Inyathelo Conference Meeting-3 Inyathelo Conference Meeting-30 Inyathelo Conference Meeting-34 Inyathelo Conference Meeting-41 Inyathelo Conference Meeting-58 Professor Brian O Connel

Images from the Kresge-Inyathelo Advancement Initiative