CAMFED
Programs and results
What we aim to solve
Education is not freely available to everyone – and in many parts of the world girls are the first to be excluded from it. In sub-Saharan Africa, 32.6 million girls of primary and lower secondary school age are out of school. This number rises to 52 million when taking into account girls of upper secondary school age, with millions more at risk as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. When families lack the income for food, transport, school fees, uniforms, and essentials like sanitary pads, girls are the first to drop out of school. They are the first to be failed by the system, facing the perils of early marriage, early pregnancy, and abuse. Without the choice to write their own futures, their endless potential is wasted. Investing in girls’ education and young women’s leadership is a proven way of improving the health and wealth of entire nations.
Our programs
What are the organization's current programs, how do they measure success, and who do the programs serve?
Multiplying Girls’ Education Opportunities
The Multiplying Girls’ Education Opportunities Program provides educational support for girls and vulnerable boys in rural communities in Ghana, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Malawi. Comprised of our Safety Net Fund, supporting impoverished elementary school children, the high school scholarship program, and CAMFED-supported community initiatives, this program has benefited over 4.8 million children. The program meets children’s direct material needs (uniforms, shoes, books, school fees) and emotional and psycho-social needs. Additionally, vulnerable children are supported by community members and specially trained female Teacher Mentors in every CAMFED partner school.
Enabling Educated Women to Lead Change
CAMFED works with young women to forge innovative pathways to enable their successful transition from school to financial inclusion and a secure position from which to make future choices. CAMFED provides post-secondary opportunities for young women who have completed high school in rural Ghana, Malawi, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. The program enables young women to improve their skills, provide for themselves, and become community leaders. CAMFED post-secondary programs are implemented for and by members of the CAMFED Association, CAMFED's alumnae network – a 207,000 member, rapidly growing pan-African peer support network composed of alumnae of CAMFED’s secondary school scholarship program. Elements of the program include: training in financial literacy, small business start-up training and grants, health activism, leadership training, and support for tertiary education.
Where we work
Awards
Hilton Humanitarian Prize 2021
Conrad N. Hilton Foundation
Princess of Asturias Award for International Cooperation 2021
Princess of Asturias Awards
External reviews
Photos
Videos
Our results
How does this organization measure their results? It's a hard question but an important one.
Total number of young women who have joined the CAMFED Association (CAMFED’s alumnae network) (cumulative)
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Number of girls receiving economic support
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Holding steady
Goals & Strategy
Learn about the organization's key goals, strategies, capabilities, and progress.
Charting impact
Four powerful questions that require reflection about what really matters - results.
What is the organization aiming to accomplish?
CAMFED tackles poverty and inequality by supporting girls to go to school and succeed, and empowering young women to step up as leaders of change. We invest in girls and women in the poorest rural communities across Ghana, Malawi, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe, where girls face acute disadvantage, and where their education has transformative potential. After they finish school, we support the young women to join our alumnae network, the CAMFED Association, and to build lives as entrepreneurs and community leaders. To complete the “virtuous cycle," many young women return to school to train and mentor new generations of students. Together we partner with communities and governments to reach the most marginalized, drive up the quality of education, measure results, share best practices, embed innovation, and create sustainable change.
What are the organization's key strategies for making this happen?
We are prioritizing three strategies: unlocking new resources for girls' education, unleashing new potential through young women's leadership, and igniting new action to accelerate change:
Unlock new resources in order to multiply girls’ educational opportunities: Support 5 million girls in school within 5 years, while also working with schools and education authorities to provide young people with the requisite skills to graduate and succeed. CAMFED's model supports children across the entire educational cycle and into adulthood. At the primary level CAMFED provides funds to school-based committees to cover essential school-going costs for vulnerable children - both boys and girls - at risk of dropping out of school. At the secondary school level, CAMFED commits to supporting each girl, selected through a transparent process by her community, through the entire secondary school cycle. We provide the support she needs to stay in school, such as school fees, supplies, a uniform, essential personal items, and boarding fees where required. We also train Teacher Mentors to provide the girls with psycho-social support at each school.
Unleash new potential in order to enable educated women to lead change: We are investing in the rapidly growing CAMFED Association of young women educated with CAMFED support, enabling members to transition to secure livelihoods and step up as entrepreneurs and leaders. Through the Association, young women graduates access peer support, training and financial resources that open up new pathways to independence. Association members then support more vulnerable children through school, multiplying the benefits of their education.
Ignite new action to accelerate change by extending our influence and impact: We have continued to scale our impact by sharing replicable models with government and other partners - in particular the CAMFED Learner Guide program, which has proven itself to be agile and resilient in the learning crisis exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. We aim to show the international community what can be achieved, at pace and at scale, for girls’ education, through the grassroots leadership of young women with lived experience of poverty and gender inequality, who are galvanizing community and government support around the most vulnerable children and young people.
What are the organization's capabilities for doing this?
Through a gold-standard system of accountability to the young people and communities we serve, we have created a model that radically improves girls’ prospects of becoming independent, influential women. Our impact increases exponentially through the 254,470-strong Association of young women educated with CAMFED’s support, who are now leading action on the big challenges their countries face - from child marriage and girls’ exclusion from education, to climate change; and through our deep and long-term partnerships with CAMFED Champions, who as members of the communities where we work, support the advancement of girls and young women. Together, we multiply the number of girls in school, and accelerate their transition to livelihoods and leadership. Since 1993, our collective efforts have supported millions of children to go to school across Ghana, Malawi, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
Partnerships are critical to the implementation of CAMFED's programs and the scaling and replication of CAMFED's model. We do not set up parallel systems, or bring in workers from outside. CAMFED works closely with community partners and its work on the ground is driven by local committees that are comprised of teachers, parents, school authorities, government officials and others, all of whom volunteer their time and expertise to ensure vulnerable girls complete school.
What have they accomplished so far and what's next?
Since 1993, CAMFED, together with our CAMFED Association and our Community Champions, has supported over 6.4 million children from poor, rural backgrounds in Sub-Saharan Africa. We are active across 165 districts at 7,044 government partner schools. At each of those schools, CAMFED has trained Teacher Mentors, who look after the needs of vulnerable children, and provide training and support for School Based Committees, who select the most vulnerable children for support and oversee CAMFED's program at the schools.
The CAMFED Association of young women who were supported through secondary school by CAMFED has over 254,000 active members. Association members support, on average, 3 additional children to go to school, and many volunteer their time to reach even more children. For example, more than 22,550 CAMFED Association member volunteers have led CAMFED's My Better World sessions in local schools, reaching over 2 million children.
In delivering on our core mission, we have adapted a transformative approach that builds on our proven model of support for girls' education, capitalizes on the extraordinary opportunity represented by the CAMFED Association network, and positions CAMFED as a benchmark for scaling high impact, sustainable development solutions.
How we listen
Seeking feedback from people served makes programs more responsive and effective. Here’s how this organization is listening.
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How is your organization using feedback from the people you serve?
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Which of the following feedback practices does your organization routinely carry out?
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What challenges does the organization face when collecting feedback?
Financials
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Operations
The people, governance practices, and partners that make the organization tick.
Connect with nonprofit leaders
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Connect with nonprofit leaders
SubscribeBuild relationships with key people who manage and lead nonprofit organizations with GuideStar Pro. Try a low commitment monthly plan today.
- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
- Access beautifully interactive analysis and comparison tools
- Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations
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CAMFED
Board of directorsas of 07/25/2023
Sally Osberg
Former President and CEO of the Skoll Foundation
Ann Cotton
Campaign for Female Education Founder
Helen Licata
Partner, Temujin Holdings and former COO for Kings Peak Asset Management
Valerie Alexander
Advisor and former Chief Marketing Officer for the Clinton Foundation
Belinda Badcock
Philanthropist and former investment banker
Edward Fields
Founder, Former President and CEO of HotChalk
Dhiren Shah
Chairman, Technology Mergers and Acquisitions at Citi
Board leadership practices
GuideStar worked with BoardSource, the national leader in nonprofit board leadership and governance, to create this section.
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Board orientation and education
Does the board conduct a formal orientation for new board members and require all board members to sign a written agreement regarding their roles, responsibilities, and expectations? Yes -
CEO oversight
Has the board conducted a formal, written assessment of the chief executive within the past year ? No -
Ethics and transparency
Have the board and senior staff reviewed the conflict-of-interest policy and completed and signed disclosure statements in the past year? Yes -
Board composition
Does the board ensure an inclusive board member recruitment process that results in diversity of thought and leadership? Yes -
Board performance
Has the board conducted a formal, written self-assessment of its performance within the past three years? Yes
Organizational demographics
Who works and leads organizations that serve our diverse communities? Candid partnered with CHANGE Philanthropy on this demographic section.
Leadership
The organization's leader identifies as:
Race & ethnicity
No data
Gender identity
No data
Transgender Identity
No data
Sexual orientation
No data
Disability
No data