Star Ghana Foundation has given out a grant of GH95,525 to the Ghana Philanthropy Forum (GPF) towards the creation of a Digital Platform for Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) in Ghana.

The support falls in line with the Foundation's strategic direction for its "Giving for Change" programme.

A statement from the Foundation said its objective for the programme was to increase the effectiveness of civil society and citizens in influencing the delivery of good governance and public goods in Ghana.

It said the programme was also geared towards strengthening local ownership of development processes through amplifying the voice and action of communities on accountability and respect of human rights from power holders.

Among others, the "Giving for Change" programme is targeted at influencing national and social actors, and emerging philanthropists as well as individual donors to support the development of community philanthropy.

The statement said the digital platform to be built by the GPF would help create complementary conditions towards promoting the power of local philanthropic, giving as a form and driver of social and systems change.

It said a few months ago, GPF signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Non-Profit Organizations (NPO) Secretariat of the Ministry of Gender, Children Social Protection towards developing a proposed Dashboard.

The Dashboard, the statement said, would be a unified digital platform for domestic resource mobilization for NGOs in the country.

It said the two institutions, in a joint statement, said useful data on NGOs, Civil Society Organisations and other nonprofit entities, together with their contributions to specific development goals, would be captured on a proposed dashboard and effectively managed to maximise impact.

It said the centralised platform was also expected to provide social entrepreneurs, NGOs and other entities in the sector, with insight into an efficient and strategic investment and the opportunity to measure impact.

The statement listed mobilisation of sustainable funding, sharing of resources and categorisation of NGOs as key areas that would be considered with the platform in place.

"The absence of a central coordinating instrument for local resource mobilisation in the Ghanaian philanthropy space has had retrogressive ramifications on the progress of the sector," the statement said.

"Certain key issues such as mobilisation of sustainable funding, sharing of best-practice knowledge, access to data will be better handled through this platform," it added.

It noted that the platform would highlight the contribution of the NGO sector to the Sustainable Development Goals.

The statement said the platform would deepen engagement with partners in Africa and others in the global philanthropy space for good outcomes.