Building Sustainability into the DNA of East Africa's Social Sector: EAPN and Ashoka East Africa Sign Historic MOU

On 13th April 2026, at the Ashoka East Africa offices in Nairobi, representatives of the East Africa Philanthropy Network (EAPN) and Ashoka East Africa put their signatures to a Memorandum of Understanding and, in doing so committed to a shared vision for what East Africa's social sector can become. But the ambition behind it is larger than any document can capture: a conviction, held by both organisations, that the region's civil society institutions must move from fragile to resilient. This requires deliberate, structural collaboration between the sector's philanthropic and entrepreneurial leaders.

The Problem This Partnership is Designed to Solve

Across Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, and Ethiopia, thousands of organisations are doing extraordinary work in health, education, agriculture, climate resilience, and economic inclusion. Many of them are doing it despite, not because of, the financial systems around them.

Over-reliance on external donor funding remains one of the most significant structural vulnerabilities in East Africa's social sector. When grant cycles end, when donor priorities shift, or when global development finance contracts, as it has in recent years, the organisations that communities depend on are often the first to feel the impact. Programmes are cut. Teams are reduced. Hard-won progress stalls.

This is not a failure of commitment. It is a failure of the ecosystem to give mission-driven organisations the tools and frameworks to build financial resilience alongside their impact.

What Each Partner Brings

EAPN is the region's principal infrastructure organisation for philanthropy. Its membership spans over 200 philanthropic institutions, with a global partnership base of more than 5,000 organisations. It operates National Philanthropy Forums in five countries, convenes 15 thematic Working Groups and Communities of Practice, and coordinates the Giving Tuesday East Africa movement. In short, EAPN is where the philanthropic sector in East Africa comes to think, learn, and act collectively.

Ashoka East Africa is the regional home of Ashoka. A global network that has identified and supported over 4,000 social entrepreneurs across 90 countries since 1980. Founded in East Africa in 2001, Ashoka has spent over two decades selecting and backing individuals who don't just address social challenges but change the systems that produce them. It’s more than 100 East African Fellows have built organisations that integrate earned revenue, entrepreneurial governance, and hybrid design into mission-driven work as operational realities.

What the Partnership Will Do

The MOU establishes a three-year, structured programme of joint activity across five areas:

• Applied Research: Joint studies and practitioner briefs on revenue diversification, hybrid financing, and institutional sustainability distributed through EAPN's Working Groups and Ashoka's Fellow network.

• Capacity Strengthening: Modular training programmes, mentorship exchanges, and peer learning facilitated by Ashoka Fellows, equipping EAPN members and ecosystem actors with practical tools for financial resilience.

• Convenings & Platforms: Social entrepreneurship embedded into EAPN's flagship convenings, including the East Africa Philanthropy Conference, National Philanthropy Forums, and Giving Tuesday East Africa, through a new jointly branded Resilience by Enterprise Series.

• Resource Co-Mobilisation: Joint identification of funding opportunities, co-development of funding proposals, and engagement with regional and global investors to expand access to flexible capital for mission-driven organisations.

• Cross-Network Exchange: Structured exchange between EAPN's 200-plus member institutions and Ashoka's community of Fellows, connecting entrepreneurial methodology with philanthropic infrastructure for co-creation and collaborative learning.

A Signal for the Sector

Beyond its operational details, this partnership sends a message. It says that the organisations shaping the philanthropic and entrepreneurial landscape in East Africa are not content to work in silos. The knowledge held by Ashoka's Fellows, about how to build organisations that earn, grow, and sustain their work belongs not just to these social entrepreneurs. But to the wider ecosystem they are part of. And that institutions like EAPN, whose mandate is to strengthen philanthropy as a whole, have both the platform and the responsibility to make that knowledge available at scale.

At a moment when the region's social sector is being asked to do more with less and when the consequences of institutional fragility are felt most acutely by the communities these organisations serve, a partnership like this one is not a nice addition to the ecosystem. It is a necessary one.