Develop like an Angel

We have always believed that most social problems can be addressed through some form of entrepreneurial activity.?The communities we have worked in over the last decade, certainly proved that point.

Even with many skills and some opportunities, there is still such a heart wrenching volume of despair, poverty and hopelessness mostly brought about through unemployment.?Our purpose at Angels is to find the entrepreneurial spirits in the community, and help them through various interventions, to become economically active and sustainable.

Not all our Angel entrepreneurs will land on the cover of a magazine – but they will improve their situation from when we met them, they will feed their family (and often, their community), they will be sustainable and sometimes, quite scalable!?We are in it for the long haul, to bring about the change and the impact that comes with certain opportunities.

Our work is not without its challenges.?Sometimes community members are difficult, they seem so entitled, and downright rude!?We find that there is always a root cause for such behaviours and encounters - almost all the time it stems from the deep scars brought about during the period of darkness in our country, the apartheid years.?The repercussions is still very much with us. I am deeply sorry for the trauma to so many.

That being said, most community members just want to have an honest day’s work, start a business, have a normal life – whatever that normal might mean to them.?Usually it is not incorrect to assume that it means having food on the table every day, sending kids to school, a roof over their heads and a steady income.?The latter being the biggest problem,

There is simply not enough jobs around.?Looking at the statistics of our job markets and opportunities, there will not be enough jobs ever.?It is simply impossible.?The job market is changing and outlying, rural spaces are either going to thrive through new investment and innovation, or simply disappear as people with opportunity and means, move away to find better prospects in a world that is becoming a new and scary technological wonderland.

?Our methodology

Our programmes are all delivered with the Life Chain of a community in mind.?What that means, is that we believe that a community should be approached holistically, and we used the typical development stages of a human as our guide to plot development programmes.

This is our approach:

Before we implement a programme, we prefer to do research and establish what is already available in the community – we combine Community Needs Analysis (CNA) with Asset Based Community Development (ABCD) methodologies.?We investigate and interview current providers and stakeholders in the development space in the community we want to impact. Once we have the necessary information, we can propose interventions that will make the most impact.?

Where entrepreneurs are not already actively solving identified needs / providing needed services, we will launch an Enterprise4Change programme to stimulate interest and tease out innovation. If there is already local entrepreneurial activities we can plug into the interventions, all the better and we will invite them to participate.

?Monitoring and Evaluation

Once the interventions are identified, we will meet with our client (funder / sponsor) to draft the initial M&E Plan.?This plan is comprehensive and ensure that all objectives, outcomes, logical framework, theory of change, reporting, impact and risk matrixes, stakeholder power grids and any other identified measures, ?are all agreed to and set out before implementation.

Our Reporting is comprehensive and includes feedback directly from beneficiaries, training reports, performance reports, inclusivity and diversity reports, mid-year and close out reports.?We often compile and complete specific tailored reports as needed by clients from time to time.

Income and Budgets

We are a non-profit organisation registered with the Department of Social Development, established in 2012 and registered officially in 2015.?We have Public Benefit status at SARS, allowing us to issue Sect 18A certificates for relevant sponsors and funders.

?The majority of our funding is from the renewable sector, for whom we deliver Enterprise and Socio-Economic Development programmes.?We mostly provide professional services, earning consultation and project fees, rather than rely on donations and fundraising.??

Challenges

We do not have a lot of challenges really, and we get by with the budget pinch that is par-for-the-course with non-profits, because we absolutely love what we do! Some minor pitfalls every now and then are some challenges linked to red-tape (there is not a tick box for passion), overworked staff members that don't have time to review programmes properly, misunderstanding and underestimating of rural communities, no opportunity to present to decision makers. A recent challenge is so many newbies entering the development space, many with no true interest, passion or understanding of the vulnerability and dynamics of rural communities.

Get your wings on!

We have programmes in many areas in South Africa, we simply need to network each other, find our collaborative connectors (co-funding, resource sharing), develop feasible and realistic programmes, and then leave us to give it wings!

Yours in development,

Lizelle and the Angels team

www.angelsinc.co.za | [email protected] | 082 324 2786