Introduction

Highlights

• Good progress made in repositioning our corporate social responsibility programme to ensure better strategic engagement with stakeholders and a more visible developmental impact.
• Partnered with the University of the Witwatersrand to hold a special graduation ceremony to honour students who boycotted their graduation due to political, social or moral reasons during the apartheid era.
• Launched the Marang Centre for Maths & Science Education at the University of the Witwatersrand.
• The Standard Bank Art Gallery exhibited Pablo Picasso, Walter Battiss, and the Timbuktu Mali Manuscripts.
• Co-sponsored and supported the launch of Maropeng, an interpretation centre that takes visitors through the evolution of humankind. Five years ago, Standard Bank donated 100ha of land for this centre.

Challenges in 2005

• Extending our relevance and interaction across a wider range of stakeholder groups.
• Ensuring that stakeholder engagement structures are relevant to business objectives.
• Monitoring and evaluating our socioeconomic developmental impact and increasing focus on sustainable initiatives.

Looking ahead we will:

• Strengthen Standard Bank’s position as an investor in social development in South Africa.
• Facilitate skills development and employment opportunities for the country’s youth.
• Offer opportunities for our employees to volunteer their time in community social development.
• Broaden the impact of our social development by strengthening relationships with other organisations in social development.
• Continue to fund the democratic process for the social and economic upliftment of all South Africans.

Overview

Our CSR activities are governed through Corporate Affairs, which takes a holistic view of the activities of the bank, through its CSI and Public Affairs units and careful management of strategic issues within our operating environment. This ensures that we remain relevant to the societies in which we operate.

The core principles that guide our community interventions are:

• To reinforce our values.
• To achieve Standard Bank’s business objectives.
• To support democracy and nation building.
• To enhance Standard Bank’s image.

In pursuing these principles, we support initiatives that strengthen democracy and promote economic and financial literacy, economic empowerment, education and job creation, thereby contributing to viable operating environments over the long-term.

The above core principles in turn will provide opportunities for the communities we invest in to improve their quality of life. We will continue to monitor and evaluate the impact of our CSR spend.

CSI

The CSI unit is responsible for efficiently and effectively utilising primary resources, funding, facilities, skills and time, to achieve and sustain positive social development and upliftment.

We pursue the following primary CSI goals:

• Promote and support effective community reinvestment.
• Develop sustainable social partnerships.
• Ensure meaningful delivery against the social requirements of the charter.

A framework exists to evaluate all project proposals and anticipated impact on beneficiaries before funding is approved. Scheduled payments are made to ensure prescribed project milestones or criteria are met.

Public Affairs

The Public Affairs unit is responsible for managing and maintaining key relationships with stakeholder groups such as government, civil society, organised business and labour. The unit is also tasked with managing our participation in the developing legislative environment and actively monitors the impact of national policy on the bank’s operations.

The unit’s activities focus on the following key areas:

• Public interest projects through civil society structures.
• Corporate memberships.
• Public sector groupings.

Looking forward, the unit aims to develop a longer-term strategy towards alignment of our activities to deal with external and policy developments in a transparent manner.

Sponsorships

A new sponsorship strategy was adopted in 2005. Sponsorships are now linked to business and brand objectives and will aim to:

• Drive Standard Bank brand awareness amongst all our target audiences.
• Demonstrate Standard Bank’s commitment to the societies in which it operates.
• Build employee enthusiasm for the Standard Bank brand.

Small-scale commercial sponsorships will also be undertaken to address local commercial needs, creating opportunities for business units or provinces to build relationships or assist in driving business and sales opportunities. Measurement will be against business unit objectives.