Every match ends.The legacy doesn’t.
Africa Football Legacy turns the attention that international football attracts into permanent programs in education, health, leadership and work for Africa’s young people. The match lasts 90 minutes. The work goes on all year.
An initiative of Actyon Foundation
90 minutes inspire. 365 days transform. Generations prosper.
The world’s youngest continent already speaks football.
No other language crosses as many borders in Africa as the game. It fills streets, schoolyards and stadiums, and it reaches young people that classrooms, ministries and companies often cannot.
That reach is an asset most of the world still treats as entertainment. We treat it as infrastructure: a way to gather people, attention and resources, and to point all three at what lasts after the final whistle.
- The youngest populationAfrica is home to the youngest population on Earth. Whatever is built for its young people now shapes the next half century.
- Room to growFew regions hold as much potential for economic and social growth, and for new talent in every field, not only on the pitch.
- A universal languageFootball is understood everywhere, by everyone. It opens conversations that no program brochure can.
- Passion into developmentThe energy people already give the game can be turned into schooling, skills and income that stay in the community.
A human development platform with football as its front door.
Africa Football Legacy is an international platform that uses the game as a catalyst. Football brings people in. What they find inside is education, care, training and a path to work.
Education
Keeping children in school and making the classroom part of every training plan.
Health
Using the team and the pitch to reach families with care, prevention and wellbeing.
Leadership
Captains on the field, organizers off it. Responsibility learned in practice.
Culture
Programs shaped by local traditions and languages, never imported as a template.
Employability
Skills and connections that turn a young person’s potential into a first job.
Technology
Digital literacy and tools that let young people learn, create and compete globally.
Stronger communities
Pitches that become meeting points, and neighborhoods that lead their own change.
Our mission: turn every match into permanent opportunity.
Staging sporting events is where we start, not where we stop. Every game is designed to leave something behind that keeps working when the stadium empties.
- Education
- Inclusion
- Local development
- International cooperation
- Long-term legacy
Our theory of change, in seven moves.
Transformation follows a sequence. Each step creates the conditions for the next, and the whole cycle starts with something every child already loves.
- 1
Football
The game gathers children, families and fans.
- 2
Inspiration
Role models and belonging spark ambition.
- 3
Education
Ambition is channeled into learning.
- 4
Development
Skills, health and confidence grow together.
- 5
Opportunity
Scholarships, jobs and enterprise open up.
- 6
Stronger communities
Gains stay local and multiply.
- 7
New leaders
Those who benefited lead the next cycle.
The real legacy happens off the pitch.
Six pillars. One integrated platform.
Each pillar does one job well, and each feeds the others. The matches create attention, the programs turn it into results, and the results bring the next partners in.
International matches that put Africa in front of the world.
A single game concentrates more attention than a year of campaigns. Match brings international fixtures to African cities and turns that moment into fuel for everything else.
What it does
Organizes international matches that mobilize crowds, broadcasters, sponsors and public institutions around one date.
Why it matters
It is the platform’s engine: the moment that gathers people, visibility and resources in the same place.
Expected result
Revenue and partnerships channeled into the permanent programs of the other five pillars.
Training that never takes a child out of the classroom.
Academy pairs football with schooling and practical skills, so that talent on the pitch and progress in school grow at the same pace.
What it does
Runs education and capacity-building programs for players, coaches and educators.
Includes
Study support, life skills, coaching courses and the training of local educators.
Expected result
Children in school, young people trained and a new generation of coaches and teachers.
Development built with the neighborhood, not delivered to it.
Communities works where the game is already played, treating each pitch as a meeting point for projects the people there choose and lead.
What it does
Develops community projects in health, inclusion and local organization around football.
How
Local leadership in the lead, respect for local culture, and partners who stay for the long term.
Expected result
Stronger communities, local development and leaders who keep the work going.
Scholarships that follow talent beyond the final whistle.
A playing career is short and uncertain. An education is not. Scholarships make sure the door the game opens leads somewhere permanent.
What it does
Awards study grants to young people identified through the platform’s programs.
Covers
Paths into secondary school, technical courses and higher education.
Expected result
Young people who stay in education and graduate into careers of their choice.
Stories that carry the work across borders.
Media turns programs into content partners can share and audiences can follow, and gives young Africans the tools to tell their own stories.
What it does
Produces communication and content around matches, programs and the people in them.
Includes
Broadcast and digital content, campaigns for partners and media training for young people.
Expected result
Visibility for partners, accountability for donors and a voice for communities.
From the pitch to a paycheck, and to a business of their own.
Capital connects young people to work and enterprise, so that the skills built in training become income that stays in the community.
What it does
Supports entrepreneurship and employability for the young people the platform reaches.
Includes
Job readiness, mentoring, links to employers and support for new small enterprises.
Expected result
More people employed, new enterprises and local economic development.
How it works: one match, 365 days of work.
The model is simple to explain and built to be repeated in city after city.
- 1
Matches mobilize people
International games bring together fans, broadcasters, sponsors and public institutions.
- 2
Resources fund permanent programs
What the match raises is invested in programs that run long after the event.
- 3
Partners multiply the reach
Governments, companies and organizations co-design and co-fund the work on the ground.
- 4
Projects run all year
Education, community, scholarship and enterprise projects are delivered 365 days a year.
Events are temporary by nature. The platform is designed so that each one leaves a structure behind, and each structure makes the next event more valuable.
The impact we are building toward.
These are the outcomes every program is designed around, and the ones we will ask partners to hold us to.
- Children in school
- Young people trained
- New leaders
- Stronger communities
- Employability
- Local economic development
- Permanent legacies
Impact you can follow, measure and demonstrate.
Each program will report against clear indicators, so partners see evidence rather than promises.
- School enrollment and attendance
- Young people trained
- Scholarships awarded
- Coaches and educators certified
- Jobs and enterprises created
- Community projects delivered
Our vision is bigger than a squad sheet.
We are not in the business of producing athletes alone. Some of the young people we reach will play professionally. All of them deserve a future that does not depend on it.
So we measure success by who they become.
- Only athletes
- Leaders
- Educators
- Entrepreneurs
- Professionals
- Agents of change
Principles that come before any project.
Before a ball is kicked, every program answers to the same seven commitments. They decide who we work with, how decisions are made and what stays behind.
- Development with AfricaBuilt alongside African institutions and communities, never designed from outside and shipped in.
- Respect for local culturesPrograms adapt to each place’s languages, traditions and priorities.
- TransparencyPartners know where resources go and what they achieved.
- GovernanceClear roles, accountable decisions and institutional oversight.
- SustainabilityProjects are planned to outlive the event that funded them.
- International cooperationLocal action connected to global partners and agendas.
- Communities in the leadThe people who benefit have a real say in what is built.
Local impact on a global team sheet.
Africa Football Legacy is designed to contribute to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. That alignment strengthens the platform’s institutional legitimacy and its ability to connect with companies, funders and international impact agendas.
This alignment is not decorative. It is what lets partners fit Africa Football Legacy into ESG policies, calls for proposals, international cooperation and long-term partnerships.
-
SDG 3: Good health and well-being
Teams and pitches as a route to reach families with prevention, care and well-being.
Communities -
SDG 4: Quality education
Training that keeps children in school, and scholarships that carry them further.
Academy, Scholarships -
SDG 8: Decent work and economic growth
Employability, mentoring and new enterprises that keep income in the community.
Capital -
SDG 10: Reduced inequalities
Opportunity opened to young people the formal system rarely reaches.
Academy, Communities -
SDG 11: Sustainable cities and communities
Pitches that become meeting points, and neighborhoods that lead their own development.
Communities, Match -
SDG 17: Partnerships for the goals
Governments, federations, companies and communities working from the same plan.
Match, Media
A U.S. 501(c)(3) structure behind every contribution.
Africa Football Legacy is operated by Actyon Foundation, an organization with institutional presence in Brazil and the United States, where it holds official recognition as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit.
That status allows Actyon to raise funds with tax benefits and to run social impact projects under demanding standards of governance and transparency. The structure was designed to guarantee accountability, institutional integrity and international replicability.
What it means for partners
- Tax-advantaged givingContributions from U.S. donors may be tax-deductible as permitted by law.
- Corporate ESG compatibilityA recognized nonprofit counterpart that fits ESG and social investment policies.
- International fundingA structure eligible for foundations, multilaterals and cross-border grants.
- Public-private cooperationA formal partner for governments, federations and companies alike.
Accountability by design
- AccountabilityA structure built to account for every contribution, from partner to program.
- Institutional integrityDecisions taken inside a recognized, regulated nonprofit framework.
- ReplicabilityOne model, built to be reproduced in city after city and country after country.
Where Actyon operates
- United States501(c)(3) seat
- BrazilInstitutional presence
- EuropeStrategic expansion under way
- AfricaNew regional hubs planned, Africa Football Legacy among them
A platform built in partnership, from the first match.
No single institution can do this alone. Africa Football Legacy brings together the organizations that each hold one piece of the solution.
- Governments
- Sports federations
- Clubs
- Universities
- Companies
- NGOs
- International organizations
- Local communities
How you can take part
- Sponsor a matchPut your name on the event that funds the year’s programs.
- Fund a programBack an Academy cohort, a set of scholarships or a community project.
- Cooperate institutionallyBring public policy, research or sporting expertise to the table.
- Open doors to workOffer mentoring, internships and first jobs through Capital.
What partners receive
- Periodic impact reportsClear indicators on what your contribution achieved.
- Visibility with purposePresence across matches, broadcasts and Media content.
- Naming opportunitiesScholarships, programs and facilities that carry your name.
- A trusted structureContributions channeled through Actyon Foundation’s 501(c)(3) in the United States.
Takes about two minutes. We reply personally.
Our manifesto
Football opens doors. Education creates opportunities. Human development transforms lives. Because matches last 90 minutes. Legacies transform generations.
- Write to us
- info@actyonfoundation.org
- Institutional home
- Actyon Foundation, 501(c)(3)