Spotlight: Barry Segal’s Philanthropic Footprint in Africa

Barry Segal, founder of the Segal Family Foundation, died on April 16, 2025, at the age of 90. While widely known for building a billion-dollar roofing supply business in the United States, his later years were shaped by a different mission: supporting grassroots development in Africa. Through his foundation, Segal helped channel millions of dollars in flexible funding to community-based organizations across sub-Saharan Africa.

Segal’s shift toward African philanthropy followed a visit to Rwanda in 2008. The experience informed the foundation’s approach: supporting early-stage, community-based organizations on the continent with flexible funding and minimal restrictions.

“If given the opportunity and appropriate resources, people in rural parts of Africa could change their communities for the better,” Segal said in the foundation’s 2013 Annual Report. That belief became a central part of its strategy.

Today, the Segal Family Foundation supports more than 350 organizations across 20 countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Its funding focuses on education, health, and livelihoods.

The Segal Family Foundation is known for its unrestricted, multi-year grants, which allow partners to determine how best to use resources. It also provides organizational development support and helps connect grantees to other funders.

“Our special sauce is helping budding organizations grow into robust, well-structured outfits,” Segal told Forbes in 2018, “so that they’ll be ready to absorb additional funding from bigger foundations” (Forbes, 2018).

The foundation’s approach prioritizes proximity and learning. It hires staff based in the countries where it operates and emphasizes relationships with local teams.

A key feature of the foundation’s work is identifying and backing African-led organizations, particularly those in early stages of growth. Many of these groups do not have access to large donor networks or international visibility.

To address this, the foundation created the African Visionary Fellowship, which offers leadership support, capacity building, and increased visibility to African founders of social impact organizations.

“We fund trust,” the foundation states on its website. “We believe community-based organizations have the deepest understanding of the challenges they aim to address, and with the right support, they are best positioned to drive change.”

Over the years, the foundation has supported organizations such as Gardens for Health International in Rwanda, which integrates agriculture and health to tackle malnutrition, and Spark MicroGrants, which uses community-driven planning processes to launch development projects.

Spark MicroGrants, active in countries including Rwanda, Uganda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, received early support from Segal’s foundation. Andy Bryant, the foundation’s former Executive Director and now a board member at Spark, noted in a 2025 tribute that Segal “believed in people, and he never shied away from backing them even when it wasn’t popular or easy” (Segal Family Foundation Tribute).

The Segal Family Foundation also convenes partners annually for its Partner Convening—a gathering that includes grantees, funders, and other stakeholders. These events focus on knowledge sharing and networking.

The foundation’s team has maintained that these convenings help foster collaboration between grassroots organizations and larger institutions, which can be critical for scaling impact.

Outside of the foundation, Barry Segal established Focus for Health, an organization addressing health disparities and systemic issues in the U.S., and later Focus Central America, aimed at addressing the root causes of migration. However, his foundation’s longest-running and most established portfolio remains in Africa.

As of 2025, the Segal Family Foundation operates out of offices in New Jersey, USA, and Arusha, Tanzania. It continues to offer funding, capacity-building, and visibility to its network of African partners. The foundation’s leadership has transitioned to Martin Segal, Barry Segal’s son.

In interviews and reports, Segal consistently emphasized local leadership and minimized donor control. “We are not here to dictate terms,” the foundation stated in a 2021 update. “Our role is to offer support, share networks, and listen to what our partners need.”

This approach places the Segal Family Foundation within a broader movement in philanthropy advocating for locally led development, unrestricted giving, and reduced administrative burden for grantees.

Following Segal’s death, the foundation issued a public statement reaffirming its mission. “Barry’s values—humility, trust, and respect for local leadership—will continue to shape our work,” read the tribute on the foundation’s website.

As of this writing, the Segal Family Foundation remains one of the relatively few funders with an explicit focus on early-stage African-led organizations, especially those working outside capital cities and the global spotlight.

Barry Segal’s philanthropic work in Africa spanned nearly two decades and emphasized proximity, flexibility, and support for local leadership. The Segal Family Foundation remains active in more than 20 African countries, funding hundreds of organizations across health, education, and livelihoods.

His approach aligned with ongoing calls in the development sector to shift power closer to communities. The foundation’s model, based on long-term partnerships and trust, continues to influence discussions about equitable funding practices in the region.