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The TNHF Community Impact Model

The Vision:

These Numbers Have Faces believes there is a stark difference between aid and development when it comes to sustainable community transformation. Aid is given away for free, but development costs something to the recipient. Our understanding of this fundamental difference has guided us in the development of our Community Impact Model.

These Numbers Have Faces invests in the future leaders of South Africa by providing college scholarships for township youth, yet these scholarships do not come in the form of a free hand out. Our ultimate goal is to empower the future leaders of South Africa to reduce poverty in their own communities, and this requires collaboration and mutual investment.

The Community Impact Model promotes interdependency in the best way possible by establishing a tight-knit support network of South African students and community leaders who wish to break the cycle of intergenerational poverty and injustice in their townships.

Together with the support of TNHF staff and South African mentors, TNHF students commit to developing their community through service, participating in a mentorship program, engaging in financial literacy trainings and reinvesting 1% of their future incomes back into a scholarship fund for upcoming students.

Our Investment:

 TNHF provides college scholarships for youth in the townships of Cape Town who wouldn’t otherwise have the opportunity for higher education.

Our students are nominated and evaluated by township community leaders and go through an extensive application process.

*Please see the TNHF Scholarship Application Form and Community Impact Model Letter of Commitment at the bottom of this page.

Student Investment:

In return for a college scholarship, South African students commit to investing in their own communities in the following three ways:

1. Community Service

Our students commit to giving back to their communities by volunteering with HIV/AIDS orphans, spending time in local schools, and participating in township clean-up projects through the JL Zwane Church, one of TNHF’s core community partners in the Cape Flats. 

Rev. Edwin Louw of JL Zwane Church monitors and mentors TNHF students as they complete week-long service projects during their winter and summer holidays. Students participate in two of these projects per school year. 



Not only is the church a stable and sustainable way to involve our students in community service, it also provides a moral, ethical, and spiritual framework essential for community building.

2. TNHF Mentoring Program

Transitioning from life in the Cape Flats to a college campus has its fair share of challenges.

In 2005, The World Values Survey Database reported that only 3.5% of Black South Africans have completed higher education.

Furthermore, colleges in Cape Town are predominately white, located miles from familiar township culture, and still suffer under the weight of academic inequality and institutionalized racism. 



Therefore, positive mentoring relationships at this pivotal time in a student’s life are a key component to a successful college transition. 

Students are mentored by JL Zwane Church appointed mentors or coaches from the JL Zwane Football Club.

Current TNHF students also commit to play an active role in mentoring and supporting future students. They will be responsible for assisting with college application forms, maintaining constant and open communication, providing friendship, and setting a positive example for future students.

3. Financial Literacy and Reinvestment

Universally, higher education lifts people out of poverty and promotes economic advancement. But economic advancement without financial literacy and community reinvestment can be wasteful and dangerous. 



Therefore, TNHF has partnered with worldwide financial literacy organization Operation Hope to provide free financial literacy courses to our students. All TNHF students are required to attend one financial literacy workshop per year so they can learn how to manage, save, and spend their money wisely and safely.



Students will learn to open and manage personal bank accounts, trained to stay out of debt, and save monthly.

Furthermore, because of the investment TNHF has made in the educations of our students, we ask our graduates to commit to contribute 1% of their future earning income back into the program for other students coming up behind them. 

TNHF students know what a gift it is to receive a higher education scholarship and they are committed to contributing their own money for other students to have the same opportunity.

Our goal in financial reinvestment is to create life-long sustainers of our program who have a personal investment in future students.

Sustainability:

Financial reinvestment by our students is a key element of sustainability for These Numbers Have Faces.

When students graduate from college, they are committed to reinvesting their own money into scholarships for upcoming students. Because of this community reinvestment plan, sometime in the future, TNHF hopes to cease to exist. 



We aim to go out of business in the best sense of the word, turning over the project so that it’s fully staffed and funded by South African nationals. This is sustainable development.   



NGO’s, non-profits, and aid agencies operate at their highest capacity with an exit strategy in place. 



These Numbers Have Faces - going out of business since 2007.

TNHF Application and Commitment Documents:

The TNHF application process is quite rigorous. Review our application form below:

Our students sign a very detailed Letter of Commitment that they will complete the Community Impact requirements.

Review the TNHF Student Letter of Commitment below: