In episode two of Ubuntu Uplift by CivSource South Africa, host Oratile Mokase speaks with Zodwa Lizzy Madonsela, Imagine Scholar’s Development & Partnerships Manager, to ask a question often missed in city boardrooms: What does effective philanthropy look like for rural youth?
The stock images of rural South Africa, dusty roads, distant clinics, and December homecomings obscure what’s also there: brilliance, resilience, and creative grit. As Zodwa notes, a lack of resources isn’t a lack of potential. Talent is a resource too. Real change in Nkomazi hasn’t come from parachute projects or urban templates, but from unlearning limiting stories and writing new ones.
Zodwa joined Imagine Scholar in 2010 as one of five pilot students. What began as a bursary idea evolved into a long-term ecosystem of support that helps young people not just access university but thrive academically, socially, and psychologically. “If students don’t have the tools to succeed, we’ve solved the wrong problem,” she reflects.
At Imagine Scholar, empowerment is a 16-year commitment: from high school to university, first job, and into entrepreneurship and community leadership. It’s philanthropy that doesn’t just hand out bursaries; it hands over belief and builds relationships up close. Students “sign a contract with themselves” while the organization walks alongside them, shifting charity’s old “let me help you” to “let’s build together.” Solutions are co-created, not designed in Johannesburg for problems imagined in Johannesburg.
Early on, Zodwa struggled to convince funders who hadn’t seen the model in action. The fix was simple: invite them to Nkomazi. Seeing the program, meeting students, and feeling the impact turned transactions into partnerships. Supporters like the Rest Foundation mentor learners, visit regularly, and join the slow, necessary work of co-creation. As Oratile sums up: you can’t buy buy-in; you earn it through relationship.
Fundraising becomes community building: partners are part of an ecosystem that believes in students as much as students believe in themselves. At its best, philanthropy doesn’t rescue; it recognizes. It doesn’t only “give back”; it gives forward, shifting systems, not just circumstances. “We’re not creating dependency,” Zodwa emphasizes. “We’re building agency, and that takes time, trust, and proximity.”
The future of African philanthropy isn’t forged in glass boardrooms or glossy reports. It’s breathing in Nkomazi classrooms, in the courage of rural youth who dream despite the odds, and in organizations willing to meet them where they are. Sometimes the most transformative giving begins in small rooms, where young people learn their stories still matter.
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