The AGAG Legacy Project: Honoring the Past, Informing the Future
For 25 years, Africa Grantmakers’ Affinity Group (AGAG) has been a professional community and intellectual home for funders mobilizing resources to benefit African communities—a space where grantmaking practitioners exchanged ideas, built relationships, and challenged assumptions about American philanthropy’s role on the African continent. AGAG has operated as a fiscally sponsored project of Tides, and as the organization concludes its work, the AGAG Legacy Project ensures that its knowledge, research, and conversations remain accessible to guide future generations of grantmaking professionals funding in Africa.
A Legacy of Learning
The AGAG Legacy Project is a digital archive that preserves the resources that have defined AGAG’s work. The Story of AGAG documentary podcast series captures firsthand insights in the following ways:
The Creating Community Podcast highlights how AGAG fostered connections between a diverse community of grantmaking practitioners that shaped how they approached their work and improved grantmaking practices.
The Challenging Narratives and Practices Podcast explores how AGAG created a forum that challenged practitioners to examine their assumptions, rethink narratives that shaped their grantmaking strategies, and support African-led and headquartered initiatives.
In addition, the report, Conversations with Africa Grantmakers, offers in-depth insights into how grantmakers navigate their roles, build collaborative relationships, and understand change, providing useful perspectives for both new and experienced practitioners.
Creating Community
Victoria Dunning reflected on AGAG’s critical role in bringing together diverse practitioners in Creating Community, “AGAG offered the ability to learn together and help shape dialogue. Because there is commonality, it allows for greater influence of each other, and fosters peer learning, sharing, mentoring, and influence. AGAG had a critical role, and found the common threads, bringing us together for learning.”
AGAG created a forum where grantmaking practitioners could engage in discussions they couldn’t have elsewhere, which shaped how they approached their work and influenced funding practices.
Challenging Narratives and Practices
“AGAG was the beginning of changing the narrative,” said Dr. Tade Aina in Challenging Narratives and Practices. “It explored power relations, solidarity, and how U.S. foundations engaged with Africa. It was the evolution of a significant process that created space for working together.”
AGAG worked to foster collaboration and to shift narratives by challenging assumptions about Africa and centering African expertise.
Conversations with Africa Grantmakers
“Conversations with Africa Grantmakers isn’t a typical report,” said Steven Lawrence in describing the publication. “I think of it like meeting up with a colleague over coffee and having a candid chat about the realities of doing the work in communities as well as moving agendas within your own institution.”
Preserving AGAG’s Influence on the Philanthropy Sector
AGAG has gifted its digital and physical archives to the Philanthropic Studies Archives at the Ruth Lilly Special Collections and Archives at Indiana University, Indianapolis. As the first philanthropy affinity group to donate its records, AGAG ensures its resources will continue informing researchers, students, and practitioners about its contributions to the sector for years to come.
Continuing the Conversation
The issues AGAG addressed—equity, power, and representation—are as urgent today as they were when AGAG was founded. We invite you to explore the insights and lessons from AGAG’s pioneering work and join the next generation of grantmakers in continuing to push for change.
In the coming weeks, we’ll continue to learn, practice, challenge, and connect with our community as we celebrate our collective legacy and promote the lessons from our work together.