Operations and Strategy Highlights

By Thandi Makhubele (Acting Programmes Manager)

The year 2021, like the previous one, was challenging for everyone. CAPSI was not spared but we continued to carry out activities as they were outlined in the Centre’s Business Plan and Operations Plan. As with most donor-funded entities, both the business plan and operations plan are broken down into various donor proposals, research projects and academic programmes, among others.  Most of these were executed successfully this year. However, navigating a pandemic over the last two years has not been easy.

For the first time, the Centre developed a three-year strategy that will guide everyone involved efficiently and in an effective manner, with a better understanding of where the Centre is headed in the coming years. The strategy’s strength is that it was developed by CAPSI team members and partners. This has been translated into an operations plan.

The operations pillar of the strategy is also based on the Centre’s desire to expand.  We are increasing resources, upskilling, and consistently aligning staff competencies with the needs of the Centre and global trends.

For the next three years, CAPSI will focus on the following two strategy pillars:

• The first is the operations pillar, which is essential for running the Centre more efficiently, effectively, and creatively. The operations pillar makes use of a variety of technological tools, that include a knowledge hub and a smartboard. Both platforms are critical for the Centre’s tracking of execution of its activities and data storage.
• The second pillar is programmes. This pillar focuses on a variety of areas such as academic courses, research, training, outreach and publications. CAPSI is approaching its fifth year in operation – we have thus collaborated with CLEAR to assess our impact so far and put in place a monitoring and measurement tool to assist us in remaining relevant, credible, and up to date.

Events hosted in 2021

As the world changes, so have people’s habits. Planning and executing events in the ‘new normal’ world order has proven to be extremely difficult, putting our patience and resilience to the test with each event. Nonetheless, CAPSI was able to host a number of successful in-person, virtual, and hybrid events in 2021.

Event	Period	Type
International Review of Philanthropy and Social Investment Journal webinar series	February	Virtual
Kisima webinars and Portal launch	April – September	Virtual
Fundraising workshop	April	Virtual
Academic Publishing workshop	July	Virtual
2nd African Philanthropy Conference	August	Virtual
Women and Philanthropy virtual lunch	August	Virtual
MasterCard meeting and workshop	September	Virtual
Philanthropy Index workshop	September	Virtual
WBS/CAPSI PhD seminar	October	Hybrid
Community Philanthropy research workshop	October	Virtual