Help us save languages before they disappear
Hundreds of African and native languages are at risk of extinction. Many have never been written down, and the people who still speak them fluently are growing older. Nzonza Foundation exists to record those voices and turn them into a permanent, open archive — and we rely entirely on donations to do it.
Make a donation
Any amount helps. Give once, or set up a monthly gift — recurring support is what lets us plan fieldwork months ahead instead of one trip at a time.
We're still building our full donation platform. A proper funding page — with giving tiers, recurring plans, project-specific campaigns and public progress reports — is in the works. In the meantime, if you'd like to help right now, the link above is the fastest way to donate, and every contribution goes straight into the work described below.
Where your donation actually goes
We don't ask for money in the abstract. Here is exactly what it pays for, and how each piece contributes to preserving and documenting African and other native languages.
Recording equipment
Field-grade microphones, audio recorders, headphones, memory cards, power banks and solar chargers. Good audio is the difference between a recording a linguist can work with and one that is lost.
Recording our elders
Elders are the last fluent speakers of many of these languages. Funding lets us sit with them and record vocabulary, proverbs, folktales, songs and oral history — in their own voice, before that knowledge goes with them.
Fieldwork and travel
Reaching rural and remote communities costs money: transport, fuel, lodging, and fair compensation for the local speakers, guides and interpreters who make each session possible.
Transcription and translation
Raw audio is only the start. Every recording has to be transcribed, translated, and checked by a native speaker before it becomes a usable dictionary entry or a searchable record.
Hosting and data infrastructure
The dictionary, the app and the database run on paid servers and storage. Audio files are heavy, and the collection grows every month. Donations keep it online and free to use.
Long-term archiving
Backups in more than one place, open and durable file formats, and structured metadata — so this material is still readable and usable decades from now, not stranded on a dead hard drive.
From a voice to a permanent record
Preservation isn't a single act — it's a chain, and a donation moves a language through all of it.
- 01
We go to the community
We identify a language at risk, make contact with speakers and elders, and travel to them — most of this work happens where the language is still spoken, not in an office.
- 02
We record the voice
Words, phrases, proverbs, folktales, songs and oral history, captured as clean audio with the speaker's consent and proper credit.
- 03
We document and verify
Each recording is transcribed, translated, and reviewed with native speakers so the meaning and pronunciation are right — not approximated.
- 04
We publish it, free
Verified entries go into the public dictionary and database, where anyone — a grandchild, a teacher, a researcher — can find them and use them.
- 05
We archive it for good
Everything is backed up in durable formats so the record outlives our equipment, our servers, and us.
Our commitment to you
- Every donation goes to the documentation work itself — equipment, fieldwork, transcription, and keeping the archive online.
- Native speakers and local contributors who work with us on recordings are compensated for their time.
- The material your donation produces stays free to access for the communities it came from.
- Want to know exactly where funds went, or fund one specific thing? Email us and we will walk you through it.
Why the timing matters
A language doesn't disappear all at once. It goes quiet one speaker at a time. Every year we wait, recordings we could have made become recordings we never will. That's the whole reason we're asking.
Can't donate? Still help.
Contribute a recording in your mother tongue, introduce us to an elder or a speaker community, or lend us equipment and expertise.
Fill out the formEvery donation records a voice that would otherwise be lost
Donate NowQuestions, partnerships, or want a breakdown of how funds are used? info@nzonza.org