The South Africa Development Fund (SADF), formerly known as Fund for a Free South Africa, was established in 1985 by a group of South Africans living in exile in the United States. SADF provides grants to community-based organizations committed to non-sexist, non-racial, democratic practices and which address human rights through health, education, economic development, environmental justice and democracy-building. SADF seeks to use philanthropy to promote grassroots activism aimed at providing services and resources to communities disadvantaged by decades of apartheid policies. SADF has used its grantmaking to focus on the needs of the most disadvantaged sectors of South Africa: women, children, rural people, unemployed, residents of informal settlements, elderly and disabled.