Audrey Elster

Raith Foundation (South Africa)

Audrey Elster is Executive Director of the Raith Foundation in South Africa, a locally funded foundation committed to financing social justice work. In 2012, she was instrumental in setting up the Social Justice Initiative (SJI), a badly needed development in a country where funding for social change work is thin on the ground. The SJI raises funds for social justice programmes from high-net-worth South Africans, a group which has not traditionally supported such work. The SJI works by linking them to social justice NGOs directly, or by receiving funds from them and disbursing them through existing grantmaking structures. To date, it has mobilised over R55 million. The SJI is also an advocacy initiative and places a strong emphasis on communications work in order to help ensure its long-term sustainability.