Leadership & Partners
The Sister 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
Nokulunga Sweetness Shabalala
Founder · Chief Executive Officer · Executive Director
IamSweetNokuOnPurpose
Nokulunga Sweetness Shabalala is the Founder, Chief Executive Officer and Executive Director of the Sister 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
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:
Founder vision
3. The Heart Behind the Mission
The Founder is drawn to people who feel:
Her compassion does not remove personal responsibility. She believes:
"She wants people to feel helped, not owned; supported, not controlled; seen, not exposed; strengthened, not made dependent."
4. Principles of Leadership
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
The Sister 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 EF Legacy Village.
Explore the Legacy Village6. Executive Leadership
Founder, Chief Executive Officer and Executive Director
Nokulunga Sweetness Shabalala is the Founder, Chief Executive Officer and Executive Director of the Sister EF Legacy of Purpose Foundation. She leads the Foundation's vision, institutional direction, programme architecture, public identity and long-term mission to restore dignity, develop people and carry the legacy of Sr. Elizabeth Funie Shabalala forward.
View Founder Profile
Chief Financial Officer
Precious Sibongile Myeza serves as Chief Financial Officer of the Sister EF Legacy of Purpose Foundation. She provides financial stewardship, administrative discipline, resource planning, compliance support and the financial accountability required for responsible and sustainable growth.
View Full Profile
Executive Head: Strategic Partnerships, Marketing and Business Development
Zininzi Silulwane is an experienced entrepreneur, strategic relationship builder and community-development leader with more than two decades of experience in private and government service-provider environments. She leads partnership development, stakeholder engagement, marketing strategy, institutional opportunities and the expansion of community-focused work in Gauteng and the Eastern Cape.
View Full ProfileAdditional 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
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 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
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 EF Legacy of Purpose Foundation. Separate ownership and operations; collaborative mission.
Read the partnership disclosure9. Partnership Opportunities
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
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
