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OSAYI ALILE is CEO, ACT Foundation. She is a quintessential leader with over 19 years in the SME sector with a wide array of experience covering international development, business and philanthropic management, fundraising and sustainability. She speaks with KEMI AJUMOBI on championing initiatives that produce positive impact among others. Excerpts:
How does ACT help promote initiatives like health, entrepreneurship, environment and leadership?
Aspire Coronation Trust (ACT) Foundation is a grant making non-profit organisation established to support local, national and regional non – profit organisations working to address challenges and associated vulnerabilities across the African Continent.
We believe in building sustainable societies through championing initiatives in the areas of health, entrepreneurship, environment and leadership through partnerships with other non-profits. We promote initiatives in our four focus areas through funding and capacity development. We partner with and support non-profit organisations who implement projects in line with our focus through provision of funds/grants to enable them implement their various projects across Nigeria and the African continent. In funding these projects within the space, we are focused on impact driven projects that will impact people, communities and the world at large. With the drive to achieve impact, we understand the importance of capacity development and its necessity for the organisations and people we work with, so we organise trainings, seminars and workshops for our partnering organizations/grantees.
How do you engage stakeholders to help proffer solutions to the communities with challenges in your core areas?
There are a myriad of problems in the world ranging from poverty, hunger to unemployment and environmental issues, however we have picked four areas to focus on and these 4 areas are critically embedded in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). As a grant-making organisation, we proffer solutions to these challenges by partnering with organisations with innovative ideas to solve these projects. We also find opportunities through our breakfast dialogue to engage with stakeholders on pertinent issues in the social sector. In these gatherings we learn lessons about how best we can work together to proffer solutions that will change and impact lives.
How are loans approved and disbursed and what is the qualifying modus operandi?
As a non-profit empowered to make a change in our world, we do not give out loans to entrepreneurs or any group, rather we fund non-profits. With the funding we receive from Africa’s leading financial institution, Access Bank, we then disburse these funds to other non-profits involved in actual implementation of projects through the ACT Foundation grant cycle. Funding for non-profits starts with the call for application which we just ended on January 16, 2018. After this stage, the selection committee selects applications which will be considered for the second stage which is the call for proposals. After proposals are sent in, outstanding organisations with innovative solutions will then become beneficiaries of the ACT Foundation grant.
What are the results so far since inception?
The results have been amazing. Though established in 2016, we began work in 2017. In our first year of operation, we partnered with 22 organisations who implemented initiatives in the areas of health, entrepreneurship, environment and leadership in 23 states across Nigeria.
Through our health intervention, we have supported organisations who implemented initiatives relating to cervical, breast and prostate cancer awareness in different communities. Our malaria outreach enabled us work with intellectually disabled persons, with other initiatives focused on gender based violence, post-partum depression; as well as eye screening and the provision of prescription glasses to indigent women and children.
Successes were recorded in the areas of entrepreneurship as we empowered Nigerians with vocational skills acquisition and financial literacy skills thus enabling them to become contributory members of the society. Our environmental stance was also visible in 2017 as we engaged in environmental awareness and education for students in public senior secondary schools and communities across Lagos state, teaching them the rudiments of recycling; while our leadership intervention mentored students in public primary, secondary and tertiary institutions across the country. The entirety of our 2017 ACT Foundation initiatives impacted on over 65,000 Nigerians.
What do you project for ACT in 5 years to come?
I project that in the next 5 years, ACT Foundation will be the leading grant-making non-profit in Africa. We would be the credible partner of choice for international donors coming into Africa which is already happening. In 5 years, ACT Foundation would be at the fore front in providing innovative, sustainable solutions to the various socio-economic challenges in our continent while also being able to have impacted more lives not just in Nigeria but in Africa.
This is just a tip of the ice berg for what our foundation will do in 5 years.
How have your experiences in your previous positions positively helped to influence you in your current position as CEO of ACT?
The beauty of life is that no education, training, job or position ever goes wasted because as an avid learner, I pick up a lesson from every situation, time and event. My role here as CEO of ACT Foundation is an entirety of what I have done in this sector. My previous positions and organsiations have been instrumental in building me into the person I am today by exposing me to various environment, people and challenges of which I will forever be grateful for. The summary of what I have spent the past few years doing has provided the backbone for what I currently do at ACT Foundation.
How important is women empowerment?
A popular adage goes “Train a woman and you train a nation”. Women empowerment is key to the development of any nation and this is evident in goal 5 of the Sustainable Development Goal. Women empowerment should be the goal of every nation that wants to rise above its current state. When women are empowered, a nation increases the number of people who participates economically, socially and politically. Our country is currently doing a lot in aiding women empowerment and I encourage everyone to do more in order to enable our country fully optimize its potentials.
How are you living your dreams?
My dream is to touch lives, change people’s stories and make a change in my world. Every day when I wake up and go to work and implement the various projects we do at ACT Foundation, I am living my dream because I am making my world a better place.
What is the greatest lesson life has taught you?
Be yourself because at the end of the day, you get to live with yourself and yourself alone.
Challenges peculiar to NGOs, what is the way forward?
If properly managed and given the right platform, the social sector in Nigeria can thrive and become as formidable as it is in the developed world. The social sector in Nigeria faces numerous challenges which I am positive can be worked on. Top amongst them are the issues of funding, governance, financial responsibility, sustainability and capacity development. Though we cannot do it alone, our work at ACT Foundation is positioned to combat some of these. Therefore, we need the support of the government to enact favourable policies for non-profits and also the support of the private sector to fund the work we do. I believe that if the social, public and private sectors come together, we can achieve much more and collectively work together for the socio-economic good of our country, its people and our continent.
