Mott's Grantmaking in South Africa

Year started: 1988

Why we started: In the mid-1980s Mott’s Board of Trustees adopted the Sullivan Principles, a doctrine designed to guide American investment policy and practices in South Africa during the apartheid* era.

Total grants: Between 1988 and Dec. 31, 2009, 677 grants totaling $69,644,205 have been made through the South Africa portfolio.

Mott’s grantmaking history in South Africa: 

For more than 20 years, the Foundation has funded programs to develop and strengthen the country’s nonprofit sector. Through our grantmaking, we strive to increase and improve ways for ordinary people to participate in the decisionmaking processes of a democratic society.

Among our early grants in South Africa was support for voter education before the nation’s first non-racial election, which resulted in Nelson Mandela’s election as president in April 1994. Mott grants also have: helped develop the nonprofit sector and its leadership; strengthen indigenous giving; support ways for citizens to petition for, and gain access to, government services; and address racial inequalities.

In 1993, we opened an office in Johannesburg, our first office outside the United States. Today, we also have an office in London, where staff oversees our grantmaking in Central/Eastern Europe, Russia and South Africa.

Learn more about Mott's current funding through our Civil Society program

*apartheid was the legal framework designed for strict racial segregation and political and economic discrimination against non-whites practiced in the Republic of South Africa for more than 40 years.