By The People

“By the people” is a project of the Institute for Voluntary Initiative (IVI). The IVI is a non-profit think tank aimed at promoting a greater role for private initiative in the provision of basic services such as education, security and healthcare, particularly for poor people.

The IVI believes that such initiative - whether it is motivated by profit or altruism - will bring greater freedom of choice and room for individual expression, and fewer opportunities for corruption or repression.

Evidence for this belief lies not only in the superior performance of voluntary action in a wide range of other industries, but also in the private providers of education, security and health that are springing up between the cracks in the state system.

Private township schools and inner-city universities, corporate HIV programmes and church-run AIDS hospices, private police forces in areas like downtown Johannesburg - all of these initiatives offer an exciting glimpse of the potential of the private sector to provide solutions to our most pressing problems, and greater hope for our future.

The IVI is overseen by a board of leaders from business, the non-profit sector and academia - Jennifer Cohen, Colin Douglas, Rachel Jafta, Per Lagerstrom, Peter Leon, Don MacRobert, Jabu Maphalala, Paul Pereira, Martin Schoenteich, Sandy Yates, and Jill Wentzel.

The IVI - and bythepeople.org.za - are funded by the Friedrich Naumann Foundation.