Executive Leadership
Precious Sibongile Myeza
Chief Financial Officer
Stewarding the Foundation's finances with the same care she has brought to health promotion, caregiving and marketing throughout her career.
View profileLeadership & Partners
The people behind the mission.
The SR EF Legacy of Purpose Foundation is carried by a Founder, an emerging executive team, ambassadors and a growing network of partners. This page introduces them in order — starting with the Founder, because the Foundation began with a life, not a strategy.
1. Founder and Foundation Leadership
The Founder is not an external partner.
Nokulunga Sweetness Shabalala
Founder · Chief Executive Officer · Executive Director
IamSweetNokuOnPurpose
Nokulunga Sweetness Shabalala is the Founder, Chief Executive Officer and Executive Director of the SR EF Legacy of Purpose Foundation. She protects the founding vision, shapes the Foundation's standards and builds the systems through which other capable people can carry the mission over time.
She leads the Foundation from lived experience — as a South African daughter shaped by faith, education, humanitarian service and grief — and from a deep conviction that the Foundation must remain honest, accountable and human. She is not a figurehead. Her hand is on the standards, the language, the safeguarding, the programme design and the long-term architecture of the Legacy Village.
She is also the Founder of Team I AM, a writer, songwriter and spoken-word artist, and the public voice of the Foundation. Her intention is not to expand as a personal brand, but to build institutional continuity: leaders, systems and standards that will outlive her and continue to protect the people the Foundation exists to serve.
"I did not create this Foundation because grief gave me a project. I created it because my mother's life gave me a responsibility."
2. The Mind Behind the Mission
A questioning, analytical, multidisciplinary thinker.
Nokulunga examines human life through psychology, philosophy, theology, faith, history, culture, science, education, business, lived experience and practical reality. She distinguishes carefully between fact, evidence, interpretation, belief, opinion, possibility and speculation.
"She is not interested in answers that sound comforting but collapse under honest examination."
Her thinking keeps returning to the same honest questions:
- Why people behave as they do.
- Why systems fail.
- How pain shapes decisions.
- How compassion can exist without enabling destruction.
- How faith survives suffering.
- How purpose becomes practical.
- How institutions can remain accountable without losing humanity.
Founder vision
3. The Heart Behind the Mission
Compassion with boundaries and truth.
The Founder is drawn to people who feel:
- Unseen
- Rejected
- Grieving
- Displaced
- Financially vulnerable
- Emotionally overwhelmed
- Educationally disadvantaged
- Burdened by family responsibility
- Lost in addiction or destructive patterns
- Unable to see another future
Her compassion does not remove personal responsibility. She believes:
- Healing must include truth.
- Forgiveness must include wisdom.
- Compassion must include boundaries.
- Service must include dignity.
- Leadership must include accountability.
"She wants people to feel helped, not owned; supported, not controlled; seen, not exposed; strengthened, not made dependent."
4. Principles of Leadership
The standards that hold the Foundation together.
Legacy before popularity
Purpose before attention
Truth before convenience
Dignity before publicity
Service before recognition
Accountability before expansion
People before performance
Compassion without manipulation
Leadership without dependency
Faith without coercion
Purpose with sustainability
Finish, improve, expand
5. Goals and Vision
What we are building toward.
Goals
- Human impact
- Education
- Emotional restoration
- Humanitarian support
- Leadership development
- Creative healing
- Financial sustainability
- Institutional credibility
- Founder protection
- Continuity beyond the Founder
Vision
The SR EF Legacy of Purpose Foundation is being built as a long-term institution, not a temporary campaign. It is designed to outlive its Founder — to keep serving families, girls, young people and communities long after individual seasons pass. The clearest architectural expression of this vision is the SR EF Legacy Village.
Explore the Legacy Village6. Executive Leadership
The team carrying the operational mission.
Additional executive appointments
Further executive appointments will be published here as they are formally confirmed. The Foundation will not announce leadership positions that have not been properly appointed or on-boarded.
7. Ambassadors and Community Leadership
Faces and voices carrying the message.
Team I AM
The community of ambassadors, volunteers and everyday people living the I AM message — the movement of identity, purpose and becoming founded by Nokulunga.
Meet Team I AMVolunteers
Volunteers are not additional — they are essential. The Foundation depends on trained, vetted volunteers for programme delivery, safeguarding and community trust.
Volunteer with us8. Strategic and Professional Partners
Organisations standing with the Foundation.
The Foundation names strategic and professional partners only once each partnership is formally in place. Confirmed partners will appear here as those relationships mature.
Strategic Ecosystem Partner
Funeora
An independently operated digital wellbeing platform working in partnership with the SR EF Legacy of Purpose Foundation. Separate ownership and operations; collaborative mission.
Read the partnership disclosureAdditional confirmed strategic and professional partners will be listed here as those relationships mature.
9. Partnership Opportunities
The kinds of partnerships the Foundation seeks.
Corporate CSI and enterprise partners
NGO and civil-society collaborations
Churches, faith communities and pastoral networks
Schools and educational institutions
Healthcare and mental-health professionals
Legal, accounting and safeguarding professionals
Media, publishing and creative partners
Land, property and infrastructure contributors
Foundations, trusts and grant-makers
10. Partner Application
Begin a conversation.
Apply to partner
Use the partnership application form to introduce your organisation and the kind of partnership you have in mind. Every serious submission is read and responded to.
Open partner applicationGeneral enquiry
Not sure whether formal partnership is the right first step? Send a general enquiry through the Contact form and we will point you toward the right conversation.
Contact the Foundation