Governance & Leadership
Genette Foundation is being built as an institution, not as a personal project. Its governance architecture is designed to be Tanzanian-governed, donor-accountable, independently audited and disciplined around safeguarding. The Board of Trustees, the four committees provided for in the governance architecture, the Co-Leadership model and the phased senior leadership structure are intended to spread responsibility, preserve institutional knowledge and reduce dependence on the two founders over time.
Statutory standing
Genette Foundation is a Tanzania-registered, independently governed, child- and youth-centred non-profit institution operating in Dodoma Region. It is established with the support of House of Glory International Church (HGIC; Registration No. S.A 18635), recognised as the founding spiritual and community anchor, not the parent institution. The Foundation has its own Board, statutory records, governance framework, policies, accounts, safeguarding system, donor relationships and reporting obligations.
The Foundation's regulatory compliance regime spans the Tanzania NGO Act 2002, the Law of the Child Act 2009, the Employment and Labour Relations Act, the Education Act, the Public Health Act, the Land Act, the Environmental Management Act, the Income Tax Act and applicable VAT legislation, the Procurement Act, and the Personal Data Protection Act 2022. Annual statutory filings, regulatory submissions, and Ministry-specific reporting are designed to be managed by the Operations and Compliance Director under Board oversight. The Audit and Finance Committee will take on that oversight once constituted.
The Foundation serves regardless of religion, ethnicity, gender, disability, income or background. The faith-rooted origin shapes the values and the culture, while the operating model is non-discriminatory by design.
The Board
The Board is Tanzanian-governed and is being constituted of Tanzanian Trustees recruited from senior Tanzanian civil society, business, public sector, professional and faith-leadership backgrounds. The Foundation does not operate with a controlling international Board; institutional sovereignty is Tanzanian.
Trustee terms. Five years, extendable for one further term. Term limits are designed to keep the Board renewing while preserving institutional memory.
International expertise, advisory not controlling. Where global expertise on specific institutional questions adds genuine value, the Board may convene non-voting technical advisers or an International Advisory Council. Final fiduciary, safeguarding and strategic authority remains with the Tanzanian Board.
Board reporting cadence. The Board is designed to meet on a documented cadence, with standing committees reporting between meetings and an annual institutional review covering audit findings, safeguarding indicators, MEAL evidence, risk register, and donor partnerships.
Standing committees
Four standing committees will distribute oversight across fiduciary, safeguarding, staffing and partnership responsibilities. Each committee is designed to be chaired by a Trustee with appropriate sector experience and to meet on a documented cadence between full Board meetings.
COMMITTEE 01
Will oversee the annual financial audit under International Standards on Auditing, donor-restricted fund accounting, procurement and payment controls, applicable legal and donor procurement requirements, internal audit and the Conflict of Interest register once adopted. Receives all audit reports, recommends management responses to the Board and tracks closure of findings.
COMMITTEE 02
Will oversee implementation of the Safeguarding Policy Suite, the PSEAH framework, CPIMS+-informed case-management and information-governance discipline, safeguarding-related risk, training and external assurance once the committee is formally constituted.
COMMITTEE 03
Will oversee the Total Compensation and Staff Welfare Framework once adopted, role descriptions and grading, safeguarding-disciplined recruitment, performance management, the HR policy suite, statutory employer contributions, continuing professional development and staff welfare controls.
COMMITTEE 04
Will oversee institutional partnerships, donor engagement strategy, country-level coordination with public-sector stakeholders, partnership entry frameworks and the Foundation's donor communication discipline. Recommends partnership entries to the Board and tracks partnership-related risks.
Co-Leadership Dual-Engine
During the Establishment Phase, the Foundation is led through its Co-Leadership Dual-Engine while the wider Tanzanian Board of Trustees is being constituted. The model is designed to combine founding vision and community trust on one side with institutional governance, fiduciary discipline and donor accountability on the other, and to reduce leadership-concentration risk over the long term.
Founder · Board Chair · Project Director
Carries the Foundation's child- and youth-centred mission, pastoral legitimacy, community relationships, family-facing trust, mission culture and community-rooted service. Chairs the Board of Trustees.
Co-Founder · Secretary of the Board · Strategic Director
Carries institutional design, governance discipline, fiduciary systems, donor positioning, external partnerships, documentation, reporting architecture, donor-facing accountability and institutional readiness.
How the two roles interact. During the Establishment Phase, the Project Director and Strategic Director hold distinct but complementary executive responsibilities under the Co-Leadership Dual-Engine model. Formal authority thresholds, compensation governance and conflict-of-interest controls are being codified through the Delegation of Authority matrix, Total Compensation and Staff Welfare Framework and Conflict of Interest Policy for Board adoption. The wider Board and standing committees are being constituted as the Foundation develops its full governance architecture.
Senior leadership architecture
The Co-Leadership Dual-Engine is being supported by a phased senior Director-level architecture, planned during the Establishment Phase and Phase 1, building toward a fuller senior management team across the build window. The architecture is designed to distribute institutional knowledge across the senior team and to give donors clear counterparts for technical, fiduciary, safeguarding, reporting and operational questions.
DIRECTOR 01
Operations and Compliance Director
Statutory filings, regulatory compliance regime, institutional risk register, operations and procurement under Foundation controls and applicable legal and donor requirements, fleet, facilities and ICT operations.
DIRECTOR 02
Finance Director
ERP-based financial systems, donor-restricted fund accounting, procurement controls, segregation of duties, audit readiness under International Standards on Auditing, quarterly financial reporting to the Board.
DIRECTOR 03
Programme Director — Child Safeguarding, Care and Family Strengthening
Child Safe Zone, family preservation and reintegration, kinship support, aftercare and safeguarding programme leadership.
DIRECTOR 04
Programme Director — Education, Boarding and Teacher Quality
Day Pupil Programme, International Boarding School, Teacher Training Hub and the Vocational and Technical Training College designed to pursue VETA registration and programme accreditation.
DIRECTOR 05
Director — MEAL and Learning
Four-tier MEAL framework calibrated against OECD-DAC criteria, baseline and longitudinal evaluation, results framework, indicator definitions, CPIMS+-informed case-management data flows and donor reporting calendar.
DIRECTOR 06
Director — Resource Mobilisation and Partnerships
Donor engagement strategy, partnership entry frameworks, country-level coordination with public-sector stakeholders, donor communication discipline and partnership-related risk reporting.
Additional Director-level positions — including Health Services, People and Culture (HR), Production Estate and Agriculture, ICT and Digital, Communications and Brand, and Estates, Construction and Facilities — are planned to be recruited as the relevant programme functions approach activation across Phases 2 and 3.
Controls and accountability
Governance is not only structure; it is the documented controls that govern day-to-day decisions, contracts, funds, risks and conflicts. The controls below are being established under Board approval during the Establishment Phase and operated continuously thereafter.
The Foundation's annual financial audit is designed to be conducted by a recognised independent firm operating under International Standards on Auditing. The Audit and Finance Committee, once constituted, will oversee the audit relationship, recommend management responses to findings and track closure to Board level.
The Foundation is developing a Delegation of Authority matrix to set approval thresholds for expenditure, contracts, recruitment, partnerships and programmatic commitments across Board, Co-Leadership, Director and operational tiers, with named approver roles at each threshold.
Restricted donor funds are designed to be tracked separately from unrestricted operating support within the ERP-based financial system. The reserves policy distinguishes operating reserves from restricted reserves and endowment principal, with quarterly reporting to the Board.
During the Establishment Phase, the Foundation is establishing procurement controls around documented approvals, segregation of duties, competitive sourcing, vendor due diligence and recordkeeping. A comprehensive Procurement Manual is being developed for Board adoption before major procurement and programme scale. Where procurement is financed by public funds or otherwise falls within applicable statutory procurement requirements, Genette Foundation will comply with those requirements.
The Nala Main Campus, donated by Pastor Gaudencia Aaron and her family, is being transferred to the Foundation's registered ownership during the Establishment Phase under independent legal counsel and the Foundation's current governance oversight. Once transferred, the land becomes an institutional asset of the Foundation and is not recoverable as a personal asset of the donor or the founding family. Related-party and conflict-of-interest controls are to be strengthened through the wider Board governance framework, including oversight by the Audit and Finance Committee once that Committee is formally constituted and operational.
The Foundation is establishing a whistleblowing channel with anti-retaliation protection, an anti-fraud policy and an anti-corruption policy. Allegations are designed to be triaged by a defined route that protects the reporter and routes credible matters to the appropriate Board or authorised governance route, and to independent investigation where required.
Governance summaries, statutory records, the safeguarding policy suite and the audit-readiness file are made available during serious diligence under appropriate confidentiality controls. The Delegation of Authority matrix and the Conflict of Interest register will join that set once adopted. Initial engagement can begin with a concise concept note or institutional introduction.