iFunza Inc.
The holding company and equity vehicle. It contracts with international investors and owns the commercial subsidiary outright.
Governance and accountability
Structured so that grant funds cannot drift
A funder's first question is rarely about impact. It is about whether the money will do what it was given to do. This page is our answer, in full.
Legal structure
Three entities, deliberately separate
iFunza Foundation is a Kenyan charitable trust established under the Trustees (Perpetual Succession) Act. It is affiliated with the iFunza group through shared founders — but it is not a subsidiary, and investors hold no claim over its assets.
iFunza Technologies Ltd.
The operating company. It holds the technology platform, school contracts and commercial revenue, and supplies the Foundation under a written services agreement.
iFunza Foundation
The grant-receiving entity. It holds restricted donor funding in its own ringfenced accounts, governed by its own board with independent members.
What this means in practice.
No investor in iFunza Inc. has a direct or indirect claim on Foundation assets,
on grant-funded activities, or on beneficiary data. Any transaction between the
Foundation and a group company runs under a board-approved agreement on
cost-recovery terms. Ad hoc transfers are not permitted.
Oversight
An independent-majority board
A majority of directors hold no employment, equity or material financial relationship with any iFunza commercial entity. The Chief Executive attends as a non-voting observer.
Audit and Risk
Oversees financial controls, the external audit, the risk register and every inter-company transaction. Reviews management accounts quarterly and maintains the conflicts register.
Safeguarding and Child Protection
Sets child-safety policy, receives every incident report and response, and escalates unresolved concerns directly to the full board. Meets at least twice a year and after any incident.
Programmes and Impact
Reviews delivery against agreed milestones and donor commitments, oversees the impact measurement framework, and signs off every donor report before it is submitted.
Each sub-committee is chaired by an independent director.
Sub-committees advise and oversee; they hold no independent decision-making
authority of their own. Where a conflict of interest exists, the conflicted
party declares it and recuses, and the matter goes to the full board regardless
of the threshold that would otherwise apply.
Financial control
Where the money sits, and who may move it
- Delegation of authority
- A binding matrix sets the minimum approval level for every category of decision, from routine expenditure to multi-year grant agreements. Anything not explicitly covered requires full board approval until the matrix is updated. It is reviewed by the board at least annually.
- Restricted funds
- Each restricted grant is held in a dedicated bank account or cost centre, with its own accounting code, reconciled monthly. No restricted funds move to general operating accounts without documented approval and a corresponding entry in the restricted-fund ledger.
- Segregation of duties
- No individual who initiates a payment may also approve it. Payments above defined thresholds require two supporting documents and dual bank signatories. A single transaction may not be split to circumvent a threshold.
- Audit and reporting
- Accounts are maintained to IFRS standards on a January–December financial year, audited annually by an independent Kenya-licensed firm. Management accounts go to the Audit and Risk sub-committee quarterly, and funder reporting follows the calendar in each grant agreement.
- Anti-bribery and AML
- A documented anti-bribery and anti-corruption policy applies across the group. AML and KYC procedures are applied to every funder and counterparty before funds are accepted, alongside annual written conflict-of-interest declarations.
- Funder concentration
- We hold ourselves to no single funder exceeding 35% of Foundation revenue, with a target of at least four active institutional funders by year three.
Safeguarding
Child safety is not traded against delivery
We serve children under eighteen. Safeguarding is structurally separated from programme delivery so that the pressure to ship never sits in the same hands as the judgment to stop.
- A dedicated Safeguarding Lead with a direct escalation line to the board, independent of the Chief Executive.
- Every member of staff and every volunteer who interacts with a learner is screened and trained.
- No change to AI content moderation, learner interaction design or beneficiary data handling proceeds without sub-committee review.
- Incidents reach the Safeguarding Lead within 24 hours, the sub-committee within five working days, and — where serious harm is indicated — the full board within 72 hours.
- We operate under the Kenya Data Protection Act 2019, and are aligning to UNHCR data protection standards ahead of refugee-context deployment.
Documents available on request
Trust deed and certificate of registration · Governance policy and delegation of authority matrix · Safeguarding and child protection policy · Data protection policy · Audited accounts · Organisation funding strategy · Consent-based funder references.