Alternative fundraising ideas for legal empowerment

In a recent Learning Exchange with Nadcao in South Africa, we focused on sustainability of community paralegal programs and alternative ways of financing such programs. There was some exceptional examples to be found there!

One example was a group of veteran legal aid and empowerment organizations in South Africa coming together to form Ditikeni:

a broad-based Black Economic Empowerment investment holding company with a thirteen-year track record of acquiring investments and distributing the profits to our beneficiaries. Ditikeni’s 18 shareholders are all non-profit organisations. Our shareholders work in over 200 poor, black communities nation-wide. Over 2 million beneficiaries, located in every province.

For more information on Ditikeni specifically, their website can be found here: http://ditikeni.co.za/

While the group has had discussions regarding ethical standards of investments and their are certainly risks involved in forming a private investment company to benefit non-profit legal empowerment organizations, it certainly represents an interesting funding model.

Has anyone else come across cooperative or private investment models that benefit non-profit legal empowerment work?

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