The objective of CarmiTrust is to serve the Kingdom as a seed multiplier.
God is the Creator and only source of the seed of His message.
We see ourselves as mere stewards wanting to serve the Creator in accordance with His vision for our community. As a steward, CarmiTrust can only be an interpreter and a delegate working toward His vision, as per the quote:
If God gave you a vision, do not try and raise it in your own strength. You will fail. Wait on the Father to fulfil the vision. Then you will know it was His vision and not yours.
OS HILLMAN; TODAY GOD IS FIRST
Therefore, our interpretation of God’s vision and of His ensuing mission for us is:
VISION
MISSION
To serve the Kingdom as a seed multiplier by stewarding the effective distribution and fruit-bearing potential thereof.
OUR APPROACH
DIRECTIONAL FOCUS
It was Kingdom service through partnering that shaped CarmiTrust’s DNA since 1980. To address the spiritual needs of God’s people – the poor – we must first meet their most basic physical needs. Mahatma Gandhi said: There are people in the world so hungry that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread. Tending to hunger and appropriate education must precede all aspects of upliftment.
Consequently our focus is on augmenting large-scale nutritional feeding and mother tongue educational programs. And we do this through a strategy of being a ‘connector’ – i.e. linking organisations with synergy potential to partner with us and/or each other in serving the destitute majority of the community more effectively.
OPERATIONAL APPROACH
To accomplish our mission the approach is for CarmiTrust to focus on the strategic perspectives appropriate to our vision and then to share the related workload with like-minded organizations who are positioned and have the complementary potential with whom to effectively partner in uplifting the destitute majority.
CarmiTrust favours a strategy of being a ‘connector’ – i.e. linking organisations with synergy potential to partner with us and/or each other in serving the community more effectively. The selection of and prolonged relationship with partners must meet our standards of unequivocal principles and unconditional ethics. Financial benefit or self-interest must never rank above serving the community in general, and God’s favoured children – the poor – in particular.
Apart from connecting public benefit organisations to enhance overall synergy, CarmiTrust works directly with a number of associates. These relationships are all based on selecting partners who are better positioned to augment our core mission of serving the Kingdom as a ‘seed’ multiplier. Partnering should optimize the final outcomes of ideas and opportunities from the seeds the Creator graced us with. Partner criteria are:
- Partner selection is based on appropriate geographic areas of operation, on complementary prospects, on yield potential and on best fit.
- We have no need to control. Rather an inspiring shared objective, mutual acceptance of each other, open and constructive interaction, interpersonal chemistry, trust and on the ‘X-factor’.
- Partnering is about sharing control and growing the aggregate through the selfless furtherance of a common goal. Joint leadership and differential work accountability remain the definitive determinant.
It is our view that the very real socio-economic issues facing the South African collective may well require partnerships to uncover previously unchartered depths within our renowned national fibre.
ABOUT US
The CarmiTrust was established in 1980 by Francois van Niekerk and his late wife, Miems. ‘Carmi’ is derived from their daughter Carla and Miems.
Along with several other businesses, Francois founded Mergon and co-founded the Atterbury Property Group; both becoming multinational organizations with prominent charitable foundations. CarmiTrust originally owned 100% of Infotech - the business that preceded Mergon and funded the co-founding of Atterbury.
Mergon is unique because CarmiTrust transferred 70% of its initial 100% ownership to the autonomous Mergon Foundation. The latter has an independent Board of Trustees that allocates 70% of Mergon’s business proceeds to Christian community work throughout South Africa, Africa, and the Middle East.
After Francois incrementally withdrew from any operational involvement or ownership of Atterbury and later Mergon and having provided for his hereditary obligations, he positioned CarmiTrust as a fully Kingdom-owned trust focussed on nutritional feeding and mother tongue education of the poor, as well as publishing the Mergon testimony globally.
PARTNERS
CarmiTrust operates in partnership with inter alia Mergon, the Atterbury Trust, Tree of Life, Halftime SA and Startwell Foods.
PROJECTS
Given our focus on mother tongue education, nutritional feeding of the poor and publishing of the Mergon testimony, CarmiTrust’s main projects are:
MOI
The MOI programme (Moedertaal Ontwikkelings Inisiatief) was initiated in January 2020 in collaboration with Mergon and was transferred to Atterbury Trust in July 2023. The programme sponsors high-potential...
STARTWELL
StartWell cereal – a low-cost, scientifically developed cereal with the minerals, vitamins and general substance to conclusively prove that one very low-cost serving per day can not only do away with hunger but – more importantly...
DOING BUSINESS WITH PURPOSE
The updated 5th English version of the Mergon Story enjoys an established profile as a Kingdom product. The story is about a South African who ventured into business after 17 years in corporate life...
All three of the above principal initiatives have unreserved credibility and are believed to be eminently suitable for serving the Kingdom - not only by serving Africa but also by benefitting at least some of the 70% of the global population who are in need of nutritious food and a solid mother tongue education. The ultimate objective of these efforts is to support a higher percentage of humanity coming to know God.
SCALING
Scaling - or our belief in the ‘multiplier effect’ - requires the finding of suitable working partners with activating potential. This pertains to the generation of donor funds as well as entities with local influence in areas we have no specific knowledge of.
We realise that the best of products remains inconsequential unless being scaled toward its full potential in reaching a critical mass. Apart from the realities of hunger, all the South African people groups share a growing need for more effective mother tongue educational outcomes – both locally and throughout continental Africa.
We have unconditional confidence in the potential of all three current CarmiTrust products. The developmental effort and related financing on all three products have been made. But years of groundwork and an investment already exceeding R50 million ($2,75 million) will achieve very little unless scaling progress can be made.
Our ‘directional intent’ will primarily remain centred on nutritional feeding, education, and on being a selfless connector of like-minded establishments. With limited capacity, we can only work towards igniting a flame of hope. If the key phrase is ‘example multiplier’, then the best we can offer are effective, proven and workable examples. But for the multiplier impact we need the gravity of our government, of big business, and of foreign diplomatic and monetary aid.
It is simply the calling God placed on those of us who do not suffer from the burdens wrought by poverty’s relentless grip.
