Making a difference where it
counts.
Supporting our children
through the Heartbeat Foundation.
Highlights
- we finalised our repositioning strategy,
including a reduction in focus areas and the
integration of charter development requirements;
- we developed an integrated strategy with
the Liberty Foundation in order to maximise
our investment in education;
- we developed strong public-private partnerships
in the corporate social investment (CSI) arena;
- we improved our position in the annual Trialogue
CSI reputational ratings; and
- we installed a knowledge management system
to track not only our expenditure on social
investment projects, but also to better understand
and evaluate the benefits of these investments
in the community.
Looking ahead we will strive to
- structure our CSI division in relation to
current and envisaged future bank activities;
- align our programme with the requirements
of the charter;
- align our development strategy with the country’s
development priorities;
- formalise our social investment measurement
and evaluation framework; and
- introduce new products and other initiatives
designed to improve the quality of life of individuals
and communities.
Through our core business, and guided by the
charter, we are working towards providing services
to previously unbanked individuals. There is a
natural limit to what our bank’s mainstream
business operations can offer. Through our CSI
programme, we are able to extend our support to
those who fall outside our bank’s immediate
target market.
Our social investment programme is therefore
seen as an investment in our future. It is a means
of extending our reach beyond our current market.
The outcome of this effort will not only be beneficial
for our own sustainability, but also for the entire
banking sector and South Africa as a whole.
The role of our CSI division is to use our primary
resources, our funding, facilities, skills and
time, efficiently and effectively to achieve and
sustain positive social development and upliftment
benefits. Through this broadly defined social
investment role, we pursue five primary goals:
- to promote and support effective community
reinvestment;
- to develop sustainable social partnerships;
- to monitor and evaluate the benefits of our
social investments;
- to ensure meaningful delivery against the
social requirements of the charter; and
- to generate maximum internal and external
awareness through effective communication and
marketing, thus building closer relationships
through our current marketing channels.
Our major achievements in the CSI arena during
2004 included:
- developing and integrating our employee volunteer
initiative, which we intend to launch in South
African communities during the first quarter
of 2005;
- the continuation of our staff matching programme
to support employees who want to contribute
personally to social development and upliftment
initiatives;
- evaluating quantitatively the benefits projects
have on development through a credible measurement
and evaluation framework;
- tracking stakeholder recognition by conducting
perception studies; and
- consolidating projects to enable greater
focus in areas where the bank is best placed
to make a significant contribution and, in doing
so, to achieve more favourable economies of
scale and measurable developmental benefits.
In pursuing these goals, we intend to concentrate
our efforts qualitatively by supporting fewer,
larger projects that are able, in time, to create
national benefits through desired scale. For these
projects, we shall commit support for a period
that allows a desired critical mass to be achieved,
while ultimately leading to reduced dependency
on the bank without compromising the project’s
objectives.
We insist that proper measurement and evaluation
systems are established before we approve any
social project funding. In addition, we only make
scheduled payments when certain prescribed project
milestones or criteria have been met. We endeavour
to pursue best practice in each development field
by consulting with recognised experts and by sharing
our own best insights and experiences. In pursuing
our development goals, we strive to create and
sustain constructive partnerships with project
beneficiaries and other social investment stakeholders,
with a shared vision of creating maximum benefits.
While our commitment to supporting larger national
projects is important for achieving critical mass,
we also support many community-based organisations,
or non-governmental organisations (NGOs), whose
smaller contributions can, and do, make the difference
between survival and failure. We intend to allocate
30% of our CSI funding to smaller social development
and upliftment projects that fall within our areas
of operation and our development focus.
We spent R28,7 million on CSI projects during
2004. A summary of how we allocated these funds
is illustrated in the pie chart below.
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