The Kiisi Trust Fund is a donor-advised-fund managed by TrustAfrica in Nigeria. The Trust Fund, which had its genesis in the environmental rights struggle of the Ogoni peoples in the 1960s, is a grantmaking fund dedicated to the benefit of the Ogoni people in Rivers State, and gives out small grants for education, health, community development, skills development, women’s programs, environment, and other benefits for the Ogoni people and their communities.
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Our vision is a prosperous, equitable, and democratic Ogoniland and our work and mission is to support organizations promoting peace, justice and sustainable development in Ogoniland.
Though the Trust Fund was established in 2009 as part of an out-of-court lawsuit settlement in a U.S. federal court against the Royal Dutch Shell Company by family members of men who were summarily executed by the government for their role in protesting the cultural and environmental devastation from Shell’s operations in Ogoniland, it didn’t fully begin operations until 2017. One of the first few actions of the Trust Fund in 2017 was the inauguration of its first Advisory Council consisting of 8 Niger Delta experts and community stakeholders, with the majority of them Ogoni community representatives.
The Council utilizes a participatory community-based approach to identify and assess potential grantee partners, propose grants for approval, and monitor and evaluate the results. The Council meets four times a year to review and debate on grant applications submitted to the Kiisi Trust Fund, making final grant recommendations to the Board of Trustees for funding.
Our values are non-partisan, independence, respect for local knowledge, impact-focused, and network development. Find out more about the project here.