Project management for community problems. One method, many communities.
Playbook is a non-profit company that turns a problem a community has already named into a project anyone can run. We run the first one ourselves, write it up as a playbook, and train local people to run it after us. Litter, roads, reading, school results: the problem changes, the method doesn't.
The playbook moves in. We don't stay.
Community leaders already know what needs fixing. What they usually lack is someone to scope it, fund it, manage it and prove it was done. That is the job Playbook does.
We meet the ward councillor, ward committee, school principals, shop owners and residents, and ask what they would fix first.
Community leadsTheir top priority becomes a project with a boundary, a budget, roles, and a measure we can check.
Playbook leadsLocal sponsors first, then corporate, foundation or municipal money. The budget is public.
Playbook leadsLocal workers do the work. A local lead is trained alongside us from the first day.
SharedThe local lead runs it while we are still there. Then we step back.
Adopter leadsWe go back with a camera. Is the street still clean? Did the road get built? We publish the answer either way.
PublicThe community owns the priorities. We own the delivery.
We move into a community once for each new initiative, to write its playbook. After that, trained adopters run it.
The latest figures, as of October 2026.
Official unemployment, Q1 2026. Counting people who have stopped looking, it is 43.7%.
Stats SA QLFS Q1 2026Unemployment among 15–24 year olds. Across all youth (15–34), 45.8%, about 4.7 million people.
Stats SA QLFS Q1 2026Grade 4 learners who could not read for meaning in any language. SA had the largest drop of the 33 countries tested in both 2016 and 2021.
PIRLS 2021The matric pass rate for 2025, a record. The maths pass rate fell from 69% to 64%.
DBE, January 2026Municipalities with clean audits in 2024-25 (15%). The eight metros kept declining.
Auditor-General, MFMA 2024-25What the City of Cape Town says it spends clearing illegal dumping. Johannesburg's Pikitup cites about R170m for streets and dump sites.
City of Cape Town; PikitupCorporate social investment in 2025, flat in real terms. The top 100 companies gave 79% of it.
Trialogue Handbook 2025Share of corporate social investment that goes to education, supported by 91% of companies.
Trialogue Handbook 2025Registered NPOs in September 2025, down from 295,051 a year earlier as organisations that never report are removed.
DSD, via TrialogueSouth Africa doesn't lack problems or NGOs. What it lacks is an organisation that can show, with dated footage, that a project finished and stayed finished. That is the gap Playbook fills.
Playbook will be a non-profit company with full tax-exempt status, so companies can claim their donations and count them on their B-BBEE scorecards.
| Step | What | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Non-profit company CIPC, Companies Act | A separate legal entity with at least three directors. A custom founding document (MOI) written to meet SARS rules from the start. |
| 2 | NPO registration Dept. of Social Development | Recognition as a nonprofit and access to government programmes. Annual reports filed on time, every year. |
| 3 | Public benefit organisation SARS, section 30 | Tax exemption. Requires at least three unconnected people who take on fiduciary responsibility. |
| 4 | Section 18A approval SARS | Lets us issue tax receipts. Donors can deduct up to 10% of their taxable income. Most corporate budgets require it. |
Playbook is led by people who choose this work. They aren't paid excessively, but they are paid well enough to look after themselves and their families. Specialist work is bought at professional rates.
Planning estimates only. The minimum wage is the rate from 1 March 2026.
Discovery Insure has fixed more than 343,000 Johannesburg potholes since 2021, working with the Johannesburg Roads Agency and Avis. Its CEO says the drop in claims alone pays for it. That is the partnership Playbook offers: help with a cost the company already carries.
The full playbook, training for the local lead, and support through the first project.
A playbook run for the community around a store, site or office, with impact reporting for CSI and B-BBEE.
Ward-wide or precinct-wide projects, with scoping, local-lead training, project management and public reporting.
Fees are set within the SARS rules for public benefit organisations, which limit trading income that isn't directly part of the organisation's purpose.
R13.1bn a year, mostly from about 100 companies. Mining, chemicals and forestry give 36%, retail, media and travel 27%, financial services 20%. Companies want an 18A receipt and B-BBEE points, which carry a target of 1% of net profit after tax.
Residents and shop owners who pay monthly for a project on their own street. Small amounts, but they prove the community values the work.
The IDC's Social Employment Fund pays community workers doing "work for the common good" through lead partners, which must work with smaller organisations. Playbook can be one of those organisations.
Companies that can't host their YES youth in-house pay vetted host partners to place them for 12 months. Playbook's local leads and tutors can be YES placements paid by a corporate.
SA trusts and foundations gave 13% of the average nonprofit's income in 2025, individuals 10%. Individuals can also deduct donations with an 18A receipt.
Cape Town has 51 City Improvement Districts, each a non-profit company funded by a property levy to keep an area clean and safe. They are natural buyers of a well-run playbook.
| Problem | Whose cost it is | Precedent |
|---|---|---|
| Potholes | Short-term insurers, car rental, logistics | Discovery Pothole Patrol |
| Litter and dumping | Retailers and malls nearby, packaging brands, property owners | City Improvement Districts |
| Reading and maths | Banks, telecoms, and anyone hiring school-leavers | Vodacom's education programme |
| Mining communities | Mines, whose licences require social and labour plans | Anglo American's YES placements |
| Youth jobs | Every company with a B-BBEE scorecard | YES host partners |
Communities choose which we build next. In education, we partner with organisations that already have evaluated models rather than starting from scratch.
Local workers keep a set of streets clean, paid for by sponsors on those streets. Our first initiative, with its own site.
Grade 1–3 learners reading for meaning in their home language, through teacher coaching and teaching assistants. Funda Wande's version of this has been tested in randomised trials.
Volunteer tutoring for Grades 10–12, built on a free study app. Learners who finish come back as tutors, as in IkamvaYouth's model.
Residents log road defects with a photo and location, and Playbook escalates them to the roads agency and tracks repair dates in public. Trained crews do the repairs.
Cape Town found dumping where up to seven backyard households share one bin. We count households per bin, help apply for more bins, then clear and plant the hotspot.
Using National Treasury's Municipal Money data, we show a ward what its municipality budgeted and spent, film whether the planned projects exist, and help the ward get its priorities into the next development plan.
Filming is how Playbook stays accountable. Six months after a project ends, we go back and show whether it lasted. Hardly anyone does this, and it's the proof funders want most.
We film the workers, the local lead and the change. Hardship is shown only when the people in it want it shown.
Consent is in the person's own language, as the Protection of Personal Information Act expects, and we honour any withdrawal.
No child can be identified on film without written consent from a parent or guardian.
Raw clips and finished films go back to the ward, school or street, to use in their own pitches.
The people on screen see the cut before it is published.
If a project stops, we say why. Funders trust the organisation that shows its failures.
Organisations whose models and experience shape Playbook, and whom we plan to approach as partners.
Ran whole-school development across hundreds of Free State schools, then stepped back in 2018 with results holding. The closest precedent for how Playbook hands over.
Since 2003, volunteer-run tutoring branches where former learners become tutors, plus a partner model for other organisations.
Reading for meaning in African languages, with the evidence of randomised trials, working alongside provincial education departments.
Five years of a company, a city and a roads agency fixing roads together. A template for municipal partnerships.
The civic-tech nonprofit that built Municipal Money with National Treasury.
The SA Institute for Advancement, which led the Independent Code of Governance and trains nonprofits in governance and fundraising.
Publishes the annual CSI Handbook and keeps the nonprofit directory corporate funders use.
Manages social investment budgets for large companies.
A network of education nonprofits that ran the sector's first salary benchmark in 2026.
Every community has a list.
Playbook gets it done.