CDF FUND MANAGER

The Fund Manager serves as the strategic lead for the Coega Development Foundation’s (CDF) Social Investment Funds conduit, taking responsibility for the strategic governance, financial sustainability, compliance and allocation of socio-economic development funds. Acting as a bridge between donors and impactful community initiatives, the incumbent pools Social Investment Funds from individuals and corporates, channelling them toward needs-driven holistic education programmes and interventions, early childhood development infrastructure, and skills development solutions.

Rather than directly executing these training programmes, this role attracts and directs funding and Corporate Social Investment (CSI) strategies, manages donor relationships, ring-fences funds according to funder interests, and measures social impact. The Fund Manager ensures that all supported initiatives prepare participants for lifelong learning, employability, and entrepreneurship, aligning with the CDF’s core values (including integrity, transparency, inclusivity and transformation), regulatory requirements, the broader mandate of the Coega SEZ, and national B-BBEE socio-economic development frameworks.

MANDATE

Operating within an early establishment phase, the Fund Manager strategically collaborates with internal Coega Development Corporation (CDC) Business Units – such as the Skills Development Centre – co-identifying impactful opportunities and integrating the Foundation's socio-economic development funds with the CDC's broader industrial and developmental mandate. The incumbent reports operationally to the Executive Manager: Corporate Services of the CDC, and strategically to the Board of Directors of the Foundation itself.

DESCRIPTION KEY PERFORMANCE AREAS

Foundation Institutionalisation and Strategy Formulation

• Establish and maintain governance systems, processes, and controls for the Coega Development Foundation (CDF), ensuring alignment with the CDF’s core values of accountability, transparency, inclusivity and service provision excellence.
• Ensure compliance with funder requirements and regulatory frameworks governing non-profit entities and Special Economic Zones.
• Report to the Board and stakeholders in line with governance requirements and statutory public sector obligations.
• Facilitate coordination of CDF meetings and engagements to drive the institution’s agenda.
• Translate the CDC’s developmental mandate into specific, operational, socio-economic development (SED) funding policies.
• Formulate long-term sustainability models to transition the Foundation from an early-stage set-up into a self-sustaining funding vehicle.
• Benchmark the Foundation’s governance frameworks against national and international CSI best practices.
• Develop the constitutional documents, operational charters, and operating frameworks for Board approval.
• Define clear risk management strategies to safeguard the Foundation against fiduciary, reputational, and operational liabilities.

Internal CDC Business Unit Integration and Co-Identification

• Collaborate with CDC Business Units to ensure alignment and integration across all community-facing programs without duplicating operational delivery.
• Partner with the internal CDC Skills Development Centre to channel external funding towards existing accredited training programmes, short courses, and the Coega Maths and Science Programme.
• Partner with the CDC MSME Development Unit to link CDF funds with localised supply chain incubators.
• Engage the CDC Business Development and Commercial sections to integrate donor pitches into the primary tenant onboarding pipeline.
• Coordinate with the CDC units working in project development areas to identify early childhood development and broader infrastructure funding gaps in surrounding communities.
• Establish internal joint working committees to prevent duplicate functions between the Foundation and core CDC departments.
• Align the project selection criteria of the Foundation with the commercial and macro-investment targets of the broader SEZ.
• Review existing CDC corporate initiatives to determine where external grant funding can accelerate socio-economic delivery.
• Embed the Foundation’s strategic goals within the broader integrated reporting frameworks of the CDC.

Fund Development and Capital Mobilisation

• Maintain strong relationships with stakeholders across sectors to identify capital-raising and co-investment opportunities, pooling social investment funds from both individuals and corporates.
• Spearhead capital-raising campaigns targeting corporate social investment budgets of SEZ industrial tenants.
• Design innovative financial mechanisms, including matching-grant and pooled-fund structures, to attract corporate donors.
• Package attractive value propositions that demonstrate the B-BBEE scorecard and tax exemption benefits available to investors.
• Diversify the revenue streams of the Foundation to reduce long-term dependency on a single donor pool or corporate grant.
• Convene donor networking events and investor roundtables to position the Foundation as the preferred regional development partner.
• Negotiate high-value seed funding and sponsorship agreements with prospective multinational manufacturing investors.
• Monitor global and local corporate philanthropic trends to adapt capital mobilisation strategies proactively.

Fund Management and Financial Governance

• Establish and maintain governance systems, processes, and controls specifically for multi-donor fund accounting.
• Ring-fence received funds strictly according to specific funder interests, mandates, and compliance requirements during all capital distributions.
• Evaluate and select beneficiaries through proactive identification or unsolicited requests, utilising stringent criteria that are highly sensitive to the plight of disadvantaged and vulnerable groups.
• Manage the overarching budget of the Foundation, ensuring optimisation of funds and prevention of unauthorised or wasteful expenditure.
• Enforce strict financial internal controls regarding the validation, authorisation, and disbursement of community grants.
• Secure legally binding grant agreements with all selected community partners, outlining strict delivery milestones.
• Oversee the annual external financial audit process of the Foundation to guarantee uncompromised transactional transparency.
• Formulate cash flow forecasts, financial variance analyses, and capital deployment schedules for executive review.
• Structure claw-back mechanisms within funding contracts to protect disbursed resources against non-delivery.
• Approve short-term investment strategies for idle reserve capital to optimise interest generation within risk tolerances.

Monitoring, Evaluation and Social Impact Tracking

• Measure social impact to align with corporate values, national legislation, and donor-specific performance metrics, specifically tracking improvements in lifelong learning, employability, and entrepreneurship.
• Deploy monitoring and evaluation systems to track the real-time execution of funded projects.
• Formulate quantitative and qualitative key performance indicators for each community upskilling and development project.
• Calculate the Social Return on Investment across the portfolio of supported initiatives.
• Conduct site inspections and localised spot-checks to verify physical progress against submitted financial claims.
• Review underperforming projects to diagnose bottlenecks and implement rapid corrective action or funding suspensions.
• Publish data-driven performance dashboards comparing actual socio-economic outputs against baseline regional targets.
• Assess the long-term systemic impact of skills and MSME programs on local employment absorption rates.
• Refine project selection models based on historical monitoring and evaluation data to maximise future funding ef