Locally Led. Globally Accountable.
Community Fund Uganda was founded on the conviction that the most effective international development is designed and delivered by the communities it serves, not imposed from outside. Our team is overwhelmingly Ugandan, our programs are shaped by village-level participatory planning, and our US headquarters exists primarily to steward donor relationships and ensure fiduciary accountability.
Grace Akello Livingston
Grace Akello Livingston is a Ugandan-American international development professional with over 14 years of hands-on experience designing and managing community development programs across East Africa. Born in Gulu, Northern Uganda, during the height of the Lord's Resistance Army conflict, Grace witnessed firsthand how war, displacement, and the collapse of social infrastructure devastated families and communities across the Acholi sub-region.
After completing her primary education in Gulu, Grace earned a scholarship to attend secondary school in Kampala, followed by a Bachelor of Arts in International Relations at Georgetown University in Washington, DC, and a Master of Science in International Development from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). Her graduate research focused on the effectiveness of community-managed microfinance models in post-conflict settings, a thesis that directly informed the design of CFU's Village Microfinance Circle program.
Before founding CFU, Grace served for four years as a USAID field officer in Uganda and South Sudan, managing a $4.2 million community resilience portfolio. She also worked as a program consultant for BRAC Uganda, where she helped design savings group protocols for rural women's cooperatives. In 2010, frustrated by the slow pace and bureaucratic overhead of large institutional donors, Grace and three co-founders launched Community Fund Uganda with a $12,000 seed grant and two pilot microfinance circles in her hometown of Gulu.
Today, Grace divides her time between CFU's Washington, DC headquarters, where she manages donor relations, grant applications, and US compliance, and the Gulu field office, where she conducts quarterly program reviews, community consultations, and staff development sessions. She serves on the advisory boards of the International Development Exchange (IDEX) and the Uganda Community Development Association (UCDA).
Credentials & Affiliations
MSc International Development, London School of Economics
BA International Relations, Georgetown University
Former USAID Field Officer (Uganda & South Sudan)
Former Program Consultant, BRAC Uganda
Advisory Board, International Development Exchange (IDEX)
Advisory Board, Uganda Community Development Association
501(c)(3) EIN: 20-5829304
Uganda NGO Bureau: #S.5914/14023
GuideStar Platinum Transparency
A Team Rooted in the Communities We Serve
Ninety-two percent of CFU staff are Ugandan nationals recruited from the districts where we operate. This ensures cultural fluency, community trust, and the deep local knowledge required for effective program delivery.
Samuel Okello
Country Director, Gulu12 years in community development. Former district planning officer for Gulu District Local Government. Oversees all four district operations and manages the 28-person Uganda field staff. Diploma in Community Development, Uganda Management Institute.
Prossy Namulondo
Microfinance Program ManagerManages 240 Village Microfinance Circles across all districts. Trains and supervises 16 field officers. Previously managed savings group programs for CARE International Uganda. Bachelor of Commerce, Makerere University.
Juliet Achieng
Education & Scholarship CoordinatorManages the Girls' Education Scholarship program including scholar selection, school partnerships, mentor matching, and academic progress tracking. Former secondary school teacher in Lira. Bachelor of Education, Kyambogo University.
Patrick Ocen
Water & Sanitation EngineerHydrogeologist overseeing all well drilling, spring protection, and water quality testing operations. Manages relationships with drilling contractors and Water User Committees. BSc Civil Engineering, Makerere University. 9 years in WASH sector.
Dr. Dorothy Opio
Health Program Clinical CoordinatorRegistered clinical officer supervising mobile health outreach, Village Health Team training, and community health data systems. Former clinical officer at Gulu Regional Referral Hospital. 11 years clinical practice in Northern Uganda.
Rachel Torres
US Operations & Donor RelationsManages US headquarters operations, donor communications, grant writing, and financial compliance reporting. Former development associate at the World Wildlife Fund. MA Nonprofit Management, American University.
Collaborative Development
BRAC Uganda
Our founding technical partner. BRAC Uganda's pioneering savings group methodology informed the design of our Village Microfinance Circle program. We continue to collaborate on financial literacy curriculum development, field officer training standards, and impact measurement frameworks. BRAC's field staff provide cross-training sessions with our team on group dynamics facilitation and conflict resolution within savings groups.
Water.org
Technical and co-funding partner for our Clean Water Program since 2013. Water.org provides hydrogeological survey expertise, drilling contractor vetting, and water quality testing laboratory access. Their WaterCredit initiative has co-financed 34 of our 128 wells. We jointly developed the community-maintained hand pump model that has achieved a 94 percent well functionality rate, significantly above the national average of 78 percent.
Makerere University College of Agriculture
Our agricultural training curriculum is developed in collaboration with Makerere University's College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences (CAES). Makerere provides research-validated agronomic protocols for each crop track, deploys graduate student interns as extension workers during planting seasons, and conducts longitudinal impact studies on cooperative formation and yield improvement across our districts.
Enterprise Uganda Foundation
Co-delivery partner for the Women's Entrepreneurship Accelerator since 2018. Enterprise Uganda provides business development services facilitators, market linkage support, and access to their network of Ugandan business mentors. Their startup assessment toolkit forms the foundation of our 12-week curriculum, adapted for rural contexts and women entrepreneurs who may have limited formal education.
What Makes CFU Different
Community Ownership
Every program is designed for community ownership from day one. Microfinance circles self-govern. Water committees maintain wells. Agricultural cooperatives operate independently. Our role is to train, facilitate, and then step back. We measure success not by how many programs we run, but by how many graduate to full community management.
Radical Transparency
We publish our financials, program metrics, and impact data openly. Donors receive quarterly email updates with specific project outcomes, GPS-tagged well locations, scholar report cards, and cooperative yield data. Our GuideStar Platinum rating reflects our commitment to the highest standards of nonprofit financial disclosure and governance.
Integrated Development
Poverty is systemic, and so are our solutions. A microfinance loan funds better seeds. Better seeds increase crop yields. Higher yields generate income for school fees. Educated daughters break the poverty cycle for the next generation. Clean water reduces disease, which increases school attendance and labor productivity. Every program reinforces every other program.