Client project: Allan and Gill Gray Philanthropy Africa

The client:

Allan Gray is a large global investment company, based in South Africa. The company, and the eponymous founder’s family, have various foundations, one of which has run programmes in South Africa for many years, to encourage and support entrepreneurs.  Allan and Gill Gray Philanthropy Africa (AGGPA) is a relatively new foundation, set up to take that programme to other countries in Africa, starting in Rwanda.

What we did:

Giving Evidence supported AGGPA in various ways before it began work in Rwanda, including: finding the relevant existing evidence about such programmes in various countries; developing a clear goal and theory of change for the programme; ensuring some points for running the programme, such as features of its selection process; and writing a useful research plan. That latter covered monitoring the implementation of the programme (including to see whether the theory of change from one location holds in another) and eventually evaluating its effects.

Client’s view:

Phumlani Nkontwana, Head of Research, Monitoring and Evaluation for AGGPA: “We really learnt a lot from Caroline during this work. She moved us forward a lot, making our plans clearer and better, and also introduced us to researchers who can help. It also was very easy working together – despite initially working remotely and our team not even having met Caroline.”