The Mandela Rhodes Endorsements
Leadership Capacity building
The Mandela Rhodes Endorsements programme, in the process of being developed, is designed to create a 'multiplier effect' for The Mandela Rhodes Foundation by offering formal endorsements to suitable selected projects or programmes developed by like-minded organisations.
Unlike the Partnerships programme, a Mandela Rhodes Endorsement does not involve the Foundation in the management or co-funding of a project - rather, it supplies a 'seal of approval', which is helpful to the recipient organisation in terms of its own publicity and fundraising needs.
As with the Partnerships programme, organisations are invited to submit detailed Endorsement proposals to the Foundation. Proposals will require the eventual approval by the Board of Trustees or its Executive Committee.
The Endorsements programme allows The Mandela Rhodes Foundation the flexibility to assist worthy projects - or even once-off events - without causing an undue drain on its own resources.
It is proposed that Endorsements will be given on a year-by-year basis, strictly applied, and that decisions on whether or not to renew an Endorsement will be based on the receipt of detailed reports from the beneficiaries. Several applications for Endorsements were received by the Foundation.
Co-hosting of special lectures is occasionally undertaken by The Mandela Rhodes Foundation under this programme, two examples being Professor Kader Asmal's delivery of the Bram Fischer Lecture in Oxford (with The Rhodes Trust), and Mr Chris Patten's Oxford lecture on Islam and the West (with the Rhodes Trust and the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies).
