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KFC Africa is making public the formula it says could help tackle child hunger worldwide.
The company’s Add Hope programme has shown how a small voluntary donation at the till can add up to a massive impact: since 2009 it has raised around £52 million and now funds over 80,000 meals every day for vulnerable children in South Africa.
Unlike typical corporate charity schemes, Add Hope runs on micro-donations. Customers choose to add about 9p to their order, KFC matches it, and together they pay for a nutritious meal. The approach delivered 41 million meals in 2024 alone.
Now, ahead of World Food Day, KFC has published the entire blueprint from fundraising to partnerships so that other businesses and charities can replicate it in their own countries.
This simple mechanism, combined with Add Hope’s governance and administration model, has generated consistent funding streams while maintaining transparency and accountability that keeps donors engaged year after year.
Proven model now available globally
“For 16 years, we’ve been refining a model that works,” says Andra Nel, head of corporate affairs at KFC Africa. “We’ve tested it, scaled it and proven its sustainability. But one organisation can only achieve so much and we believe that the future will be one with a collaborative approach.
“By making our entire playbook freely available, we’re hoping to accelerate progress against child hunger globally as well as in South Africa.”
The decision to open-source the model represents a significant departure from conventional corporate practice, where successful social impact programmes are typically seen as competitive advantages, to a more collaborative effort.
Data-driven impact
The programme’s 16-year track record is impressive:
R1.2 billion raised through small, voluntary customer donations.
41 million meals served in 2024.
154,770 children reached in 2024.
128 beneficiary partnerships.
3,323 feeding centres throughout South Africa.
Consistent year-on-year growth in reach and impact.
The model’s effectiveness lies in its simplicity and its integration of numerous partners. Customers provide funding, KFC manages the infrastructure and accountability systems, and established community organisations prepare and serve meals to children they identify as being vulnerable.
Whole-of-society response to hunger crisis
The initiative, in the run-up to World Food Day on 16 October, comes as food insecurity reaches critical levels globally. The World Food Programme says 319 million people are living with acute hunger and warns that children are the worst affected, with long-term consequences for their physical and mental development.
In South Africa, the UN Children’s Fund reports that one in four children live in severe food poverty, and the government estimates that more than 1,000 children die from malnutrition annually despite existing interventions.
“Individual feeding programmes, however well-intentioned, cannot solve a crisis of this magnitude,” says Nel. “We need coordinated whole-of-society responses, and that requires sharing knowledge, resources and proven methodologies.”
A multi-sector task team has been established to develop the hackathon insights into implementable collaborative programmes and to encourage adoption of the Add Hope model by other organisations.
Global replication potential
While designed for the South African context, the Add Hope framework addresses challenges common to child hunger initiatives worldwide:
Sustainable funding mechanisms that don’t rely solely on corporate budgets.
Transparent accountability that maintains donor trust.
Local implementation that respects community knowledge and relationships.
Scalable structures that can grow from single locations to national networks.
The complete Add Hope playbook is now available for download, providing organisations globally with access to operational templates, partnership frameworks, impact measurement tools and implementation guides.
Nel says Add Hope demonstrates what is possible when corporate philanthropy is designed for the long term. “Sixteen years of consistent impact proves this isn’t a marketing exercise – it’s a genuine commitment to solving a problem that affects millions of children,” she says.
“We’re hoping other organisations will take what we’ve learned, adapt it to their contexts and improve upon it or better yet, collaborate with us so that we can make a greater impact together. If we can inspire even a handful of similar programmes globally, we’ll multiply our impact many times over. That’s worth more than keeping our playbook to ourselves.”