Insight

In the footsteps of the barefoot banker

10 October 2011

Samantha Braithwaite, Tshikululu CSI practitioner, spent last year working in Bangladesh for the Yunus Centre, training in the Grameen Bank model. She compares what she saw to our South Africa reality.

Last year I set off for Bangladesh – land of cyclones, extreme poverty and home to global inspiration, Professor Muhammad Yunus – founder of the Grameen Bank and 2006 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate. Grameen bank, started in 1983, today provides collateral-free microloans to 8.2 million of Bangladesh’s poorest.  

All NPOs should be using social media. Well, maybe.

13 September 2011

Social media is not the “˜next big thing’, it’s right now’s big thing. But, NPOs, that doesn’t necessarily mean that everyone should be doing it. At the risk of sounding like a social media cynic, Gina de Villiers, Tshikululu’s senior communications specialist, explains.  

Achieving community investment with corporate returns

7 September 2011

Corporate social investment (CSI) initiatives can do much to build a company’s resilience and reputation and to generate sustainable improvements for South African communities. So why do many still struggle to gain internal corporate recognition and demonstrate lasting impacts?

Louise Gardiner, international corporate sustainability expert and founder of First Principles Sustainability Services suggests four reasons and four strategies to address them.  

Grantmaking in the disability sector – “˜Nothing about us without us’

1 September 2011

Elinor Kern, CSI Practitioner at Tshikululu Social Investments, considers how social investors should approach their work in the disability sector  – in an inclusive partnership with the people they support.

“˜Nothing about us without us’ is an international disability slogan that encapsulates the importance of the inclusion of people with disabilities.

Until recently, much of the focus in disability sector work has been on the medical and individual implications for people living with disabilities, but this is a limiting approach and does not take into account their social needs. It is most commonly referred to as a “˜medical model’, which is not developmental in nature and it does not acknowledge the real needs of people with disability.  

Seek social returns on enterprise development investments

29 August 2011

The focus on enterprise development (ED) is given impetus by the fact that companies can earn points on their BBBEE scorecard by supporting such initiatives.  But, says Jane Woodhouse, Business Development Manager at Tshikululu Social Investments, becoming involved in ED for the right reasons is more important than the pure financial contribution.  

NGOs need help in halting increase in fraud

26 August 2011

Have you noticed an increase in reports of nongovernmental organisation (NGO) fraud? Tshikululu’s CEO, Tracey Henry has, and doesn’t believe this means investors should run scared.

This article was first published by Business Day.

Our grant-making oversight has picked up as many cases (some not yet proven) this year as in the previous 12 years combined. And all around us we hear more stories of misrepresentation of accounts, or hidden extra payments to staff, or even outright theft. This is happening in a development sector under severe financial stress and holds lessons for private-sector funders of “good works”.  

Ethical consumerism – what next for South Africa?

9 August 2011

Overall, research shows that South African companies seem to be getting their corporate citizenship efforts right - particularly when they prioritise education initiatives and employment equity.

Here’s a key question for local manufacturers, retailers and service providers: Are South Africans genuinely interested in ethical products and would they act on these preferences through their purchase behaviour? Louise Gardiner, founder and MD at First Principles Sustainability Services, takes a closer look.  

Celebrate Women’s Day by recalling 1956

Today, we should reflect on our roles at home and in society, and on the significance of Women's Day to ourselves and to our country.

Remembering past icons of the struggle for gender equality is helpful in galvanising awareness about current challenges that women face in society. But if that’s just for a day, then we won’t make much progress, writes Hangwi Manavhela, development specialist at Tshikululu Social Investments.

On the face of it, women have much to celebrate on our national Women’s Day. We’ve certainly come a long way from 9 August 1956, when remarkable women like the late Albertina Sisulu put themselves into apartheid’s lion den to insist on being treated as human beings, no less.

We know from daily experience that there is still so much to be done in gaining gender equality, and for recognition of our common humanity, that there is a danger of complacently settling for less than what is fully right. And we have far easier ways to mobilise ourselves than on that day 55 years ago!  

Creating jobs in South Africa by learning from America

3 August 2011

If we are to overcome the unemployment crisis, we will have to move intelligently and together; business and government working proactively and creatively.

Written by Yvonne Pennington, CSI practitioner at Tshikululu Social Investments.

In an article which appeared in Time magazine on 30 May 2011, the journalist Fareed Zakaria welcomed an end to the financial crisis, but introduced an important caveat: in the United States, the rebound has come at the expense of jobs. Though the U.S. gross domestic product has returned to where it was in 2007, it has reached this point with seven million fewer workers.

South Africa is facing an employment crisis too. A quarter of South Africans were reported as unemployed in the first quarter of 2011; a figure which does not include those who are not working but who are actively seeking work. This places us 174th out of 200 countries ranked in the CIA World Factbook. President Jacob Zuma, in his State of the Nation address in February this year, recognised the crisis, declaring 2011 a year of job creation.  

Securing the future – brick by brick

4 July 2011

Maboe Primary School in Limpopo. Seven classrooms, toilets, borehole and renovations to existing classroom completed

Tshikululu Social Investments has been engaged in infrastructural capital projects since its inception. This work continues in especially the education and health sectors, with Tshikululu’s hands-on project management of client construction projects, from blueprint phase to handover.

Here, Tshikululu shares some advice and thoughts for social investors to consider when undertaking this intensive and sometimes risky work.