Scaling Down
the Fund
Scaling Down the Fund
Upon request from the Presidency, the Board envisioned a scaled down structure that could rapidly reactivate and respond to disasters. This would allow for the retention of the intellectual property and institutional knowledge that has been built over the lifetime of the Fund and enable even faster start-up if the need arises.
The Fund has successfully served as a catalyst in responding to COVID-19 in a manner that leveraged from business, government, and civil society. Based on the proven success of this model, the Solidarity Fund’s Board approved the scaled down Fund ready for reactivation since it would be most beneficial to the country and is aligned to the Fund’s ethos and values.
The Fund established a Scale Down Programme Office (SPO) tasked with designing and coordinating the scale down programme. The SPO operated as a transformation office that coordinated activities required from the established teams to scale down operations.
The SPO developed a timeline with key activities, milestones, and deadlines to serve as guidance to teams to execute activities on time and in a coordinated manner.
The objective was to establish a scaled down Solidarity Fund that will operate with the required minimal activity to meet its legal and regulatory requirements, ready to respond to a future disaster that requires its support.
Envisaged steps towards the scale down Fund included:
- Concluding almost all activity within the Pillars and stopping all fundraising.
- Achieving a targeted cash balance of a minimum of R15m to fund the scale down phase and future reactivation of the Fund
- Reducing the Board to five board members, preferably drawn from the existing Board.
- Establishing the revised mandate of the Solidarity Fund in the Memorandum of Incorporation to govern the scaled down phase.
- Adopting an outsourced administration model that meets the minimum requirements of the law for not-for-profit companies.
The scaled down Solidarity Fund will:
- Deliver the mandate of the Solidarity Fund under the guidance and oversight of the Board.
- Trigger the activation of the Solidarity Fund 2.0, if the set of criteria are met.
- Conduct minimal operations to keep the scaled down fund compliant to the requirements of the law, including meeting audit requirements, complying with the requirements of SARS and any other legal requirements.
- Review the need to continue operating the scaled down NPC periodically.
Once a limited purpose Response Fund has achieved its mandate it is important to determine if the Fund should be closed, scaled down, or continued. A clear decision is important to ensure that the actions of management are aligned to the Fund’s strategy. If a decision is not made upfront it could lead to teams being misaligned and unclear on the way forward.
At the initiation of the scale down process a clear purpose for scale down as well as intended timelines to focus the Fund on transitioning to a scaled down Fund is critical to ensure alignment across the entire organisation.
Appoint an independent Transformation Office (TMO) to facilitate the wind down process, that is not focused on business as usual and is specifically tasked with the transition process.
Regular check-ins between the TMO and key stakeholders are important to align on the end state and transition process, to mitigate any wind down risks, and to ensure the entire organisation is involved in the wind down journey and understand their individual role to achieve the end state.
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