Jeremy Maarman
Executive Director, Initiative for Community Advancement
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“Leadership is about enabling individuals and communities to harness their power to transform their realities while fostering a shared responsibility for the collective good. It’s about unlocking the potential in others to lead themselves and their communities toward justice and opportunity.”
Jeremy Maarman is a South Africa-based community philanthropy advocate who helps underrepresented groups of people define and drive their own development agendas and processes. Committed to dismantling structural inequality across the African continent, he works at the grassroots level to help people maximize equitable development opportunities.
As the executive director of the Initiative for Community Advancement and as a consultant working with community foundations across Africa, Jeremy works in resource mobilization, strategic partnerships, and growing community foundations. He also focuses on shifting power dynamics, fostering resilience, and creating networks of collaboration that amplify grassroots impact, reduce dependency on external aid, and prioritize self-determination.
Jeremy’s work is driven by the belief that locally driven solutions and community-led systems hold the power to challenge entrenched disparities and create sustainable, equitable futures. Working across African communities has taught him that lasting change comes from investing in people, not projects. His work is grounded in fostering trust, celebrating local knowledge, and embracing the unique strengths of each community to create scalable models for change. Through place-based development, he believes it is possible to shift communities from reliance on external aid to local ownership, thereby building systems that challenge inequality and promote equity across Africa.