Greater Rustenburg Community Foundation

Meet our team that makes everything possible:

GRCF is made out of permanent staff, consultants and our board of trustees. Each person plays an important role in the foundation to make sure all goals are met and that our vision of being a responsive facilitator of sustainable development is realised.

Permanent Staff

Christine Delport – COO & Founder
George Mathuse – CEO
Bonolo Mmokele – Project Assistant
Lubbe Oosthuizen – Finances
Eva Sekete – Carelady

Consultants:

Corne Theunissen – Reaserch and Development
Nohline Geyer – QuantumStep Human Development
Karlien Delport – PR & Communications

Board of Trustees

Johan Knoesen
Ambroses Sekotlo
Norman Barlow
Shirley Seboka
Christine Moroeng

Our Grantmaking Program:

As part of the grantmaking program, the GRCF piloted an innovative and highly effective Social Development Programme in the rural town of Mathopestat in 2009. This paradigm, known as Community Asset Mapping Program (CAMP), guides communities in identifying their assets, revealing to them that they are wealthier than they realise, and assists them in identifying sustainable development projects by focusing on these assets. The GRCF then funds successful projects and supports role-players and organisations identified through CAMP.

We have completed a total of twelve CAMP workshops in 9 clusters during 2010 and the outcome has been so positive and encouraging that the GRCF will roll out the Programme in 9 more clusters in the Bojanala district during 2011, in addition to the current 2010 projects.

We have completed a total of 12 CAMP workshops

Our CAMP Workshops:

CAMP² (Community Action Mobilisation Program) provides for monitoring, evaluation and technical support of interventions for a period of up to five years to ensure the sustainability of projects and effectiveness of grants. We have found that this is the key to the successful outcomes we desire. In addition to the development projects germinated from CAMP, it is expected that the outcome of each CAMP intervention will lead to the establishment of a Community Forum.

CAMP is a combination of the ABCD Programme derived from our international partner, the COADY Institute of Canada, combined with a 5 year Community Asset Mobilisation Program (CAMP²) and leads to the generation of relevant, effective and sustainable social, economic and environmental projects.

The GRCF was appointed as disbursing agent to the North West Provincial Department of Health and Social Development in 2010 and we utilised the CAMP Workshops to ensure the effectiveness of the grants and sustainability. It soon became clear that CAMP is the ideal model for the Department to disburse their grants to indigent households while ensuring sustainable development.

Why we need your support

“Corporate social responsibility is a hard-edged business decision. Not because it is a nice thing to do or because people are forcing us to do it… because it is good for our business“
– Niall Fitzgerald, Former CEO, Unilever

Summary:

CSI is a mandatory part of BEE guidelines, but it often gets done in and ad-hoc way. If done strategically, effective CSI leads to cost savings as well as to increased productivity, thus having a positive impact on overall company profit. Partnering with a local community grantmaker like the GRCF is a good way to ensure strategic CSI through the community foundation’s specialized expertise and experience of the local community as well as through access to measurement and evaluation, especially for businesses which may not have the resources nor want the hassle of having a dedicated CSI department. In essence, a community foundation can serve as the perfect vehicle for outsourcing your CSI to ensure for maximum impact and mutual benefit for communities and for businesses.

Corporate social responsibility is a hard-edged business decision.

Background:

The business case for Corporate Social Responsibility, whereby a business engages in various social and environmental projects, has been made significantly stronger over the recent years. This is shown by drastic increases in the number of companies reporting on CSR initiatives, creating dedicated CSR departments and formulating integrated CSR strategies that match up with the overall corporate strategy.

With pressure from consumers as well as employees for companies to be more socially responsible, companies can no longer ignore this important obligation. However, CSR need not be only about public relations. If done well, companies are realizing that CSR initiatives can have real impacts on the bottom line – through local procurement, increased productivity, reduction in costs associated with health, increased efficiency, and creating new markets. This is of course even more true in developing countries where corporate development programs help fill infrastructure and service gaps left by developing and under-resourced governments.

CSI:

In South Africa, while many companies have a CSR strategy, the subsidiary Corporate Social Investment (CSI), usually in the form of grants, is often done in a non-strategic way. Moreover, even when attempts are made to consider the overall strategy, measurement and evaluation for actual efficacy and impact of the recipient organizations is rarely done, which means corporations have no idea how effectively their funds are being spent.

Corporations also rarely consider what others in the field are doing and therefore there may be large overlaps and huge gaps, meaning that the money being spent is not having the highest possible impact nor benefit.

Specific value proposition of strategic CSI (and CSR) to corporations:

How can investing in the right organization ensure maximum benefits for a corporation’s bottom line? Some of the following are examples of how strategic CSI can benefit a South African business involved with mining:

• HIV/Aids: Spending billions on treatment, and correspondingly less on prevention, means increased costs in the long run due to absenteeism, productivity declines, increasing health-care expenditures, and recruitment and training expenses. UNAIDS has estimated that up to 25-54% of company costs in South Africa result directly or indirectly from this disease, leading to an 8% reduction in overall profits. Finding effective prevention programs would greatly reduce these costs.

• Productivity: Effective community development leading to better health, social and economic opportunities in the communities from which mines source their workers leads to happier and healthier workers, and therefore increases productivity.

• Procurement: Effective local socio-economic development leads to possibilities for local procurement, especially as concerns food and other raw materials in the short-term and even more sophisticated items in the long term, often at preferential rates and with reduced transportation costs.

• Creating new markets: As communities develop, the skills available will increase and possible new crafts and businesspeople requiring mined raw materials will also increase, thus leading to higher demand and higher profits for the mine locally.

Community foundations as a vehicle for strategic CSI:

Partnering with an organization who is really effective at what they do, has excellent standards of measurement and evaluation, is well audited, and is ever growing in prominence due to the innovation of programs helps create both strategic CSR (in the case of project partnerships) and strategic CSI (in the case of monetary donations). Some examples of why a community foundation is an excellent partner and channel for CSI funds include:

• Intimate knowledge of and close relationship to the community

• Extensive experience in local development and with local NGOs (due to acting as a grant-maker and capacity builder) – development is our business, as mining is yours.

• Excellent measurement and evaluation of impact, which helps ensure that initiatives are of maximum impact in communities and therefore strategically beneficial to donors as well

• International connections and exposure, leading to cutting edge programs and more chances for marketing

• Reflective of the communities they serve

• Not seen as self-serving by the communities, while business led initiatives often can be leading to decreased sustainability of business led projects

• Less resources wasted on implementation, due to prior knowledge and experience

• Perpetuity of initiatives beyond the existence of the mine ensures a lasting legacy