SOCIAL SUSTAINABILITY

THE NEDBANK FOUNDATION

The Nedbank Foundation is the primary corporate social investment (CSI) arm of Nedbank Group and is integral to the organisation’s achievement of its Deep Green aspiration of ‘being highly involved in the community and environment’.

Established in 1992, the foundation contributes significantly to community upliftment and development programmes that are both empowering and sustainable – and encourages others to do the same. To ensure the long-term effectiveness of the contributions it makes the foundation focuses its CSI efforts and contributions on the following key focus areas:

Education	Assistance is given to a variety of school-based educational projects, early-childhood development, rural-school refurbishment, support forteacher training initiatives, support totertiary institutions and any other priority areas in education in line with national priorities.
Community development	Support for HIV/Aids initiatives, children’s homes, hunger and disaster relief and non-profit organisations (NPOs) that serve vulnerable groups.
Socioeconomic development	Support for a variety of skills development and enterprise development projects.
Volunteerism	Opportunities for staffmembers to volunteer and support various causes that they are passionate about.

The planned equitable spread across these focus areas progressed well in 2009, with the Nedbank Foundation now enjoying a footprint across all nine provinces. Nedbank Group goes to great lengths to ensure that its money is channelled to the most deserving causes. Care is taken, and strict approval processes followed, to ensure that funds are properly administered, and that governing boards run clean and sound administrations. Funding is granted to NPOs and community- based organisations, schools and tertiary institutions. Political organisations and exclusive (discriminatory) cultural organisations are excluded.

The following process is applied when considering a project for funding:

A background check is done by requesting information on the organisation and individuals within that organisation.
A Nedbank Foundation official conducts a face-to-face interview with representatives of the organisation to understand the project needs.
The Nedbank Foundation official visits the project to confirm facts.
The Nedbank Foundation ensures that proper financial control measures and governance structures exist within projects.
Confirmation of cofunders’ names eliminates the possibility of a conflict of interest, and avoids reputational risk to the bank and duplicated funding for the same purpose.

Proposals are approved by the head of the foundation, the management committee or the board of trustees, depending on the value of the proposal.

During 2009 the Nedbank Foundation spent R30,5 million (2008: R27,2 million) in support of more than 291 projects.

Nedbank Foundation projects spent

Nedbank acknowledges the need to measure and monitor the social return on its investments more closely. We have conducted an evaluation of the socioeconomic development environment and Nedbank’s involvement in this area.

To address issues identified as part of this evaluation process we have (i) implemented a bursary scheme and (ii) have rightsized and aligned available budgets and (iii) are currently in the process of aligning expenditure to the bank’s socioeconomic development strategy, which supports the bank’s integrated approach to sustainability.

EDUCATION

Nedbank Group consistently works to provide SA children with a solid education, focusing on rural-school and early-childhood development, providing learning tools for preschools and generally creating environments that are conducive to learning. Examples of education projects supported by the foundation in 2009 include:

The Read Foundation – Through the distribution of books and reading materials to over 26 000 SA schools, the Nedbank Readathon promotes reading in its widest sense. The campaign reaches an estimated 330 000 educators and over 13 million learners and their families.
Mack Semeka Senior Secondary School – Established in 1984 as a community initiative, the fast-growing school had a shortage of classrooms, resulting in severe overcrowding. The Nedbank Foundation donated R660 000 towards the building of four additional classes to reduce overcrowding.
Nedbank Foundation Library Donation Project – The Nedbank Foundation partnered with Qualibooks Naledi to make readers, reference books, dictionaries and encyclopaedias available to 15 primary schools in all nine provinces.

Learners from Is’lihle Primary School with Nedbank CE, Tom Boardman

COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT

HIV/Aids is a particular area of focus for Nedbank Group as part of its commitment to community development. During 2009 the Nedbank Foundation contributed to numerous projects and charities, including:

Indlela/Tsela Multipurpose Centre – Located at Ledig Village in the Moses Kotane local municipality, the organisation houses 25 people living with HIV/Aids, and provides them with meals, food parcels, counselling and mentoring. The Nedbank Foundation provided R250 000 towards the building of a proper structure.
Nceduluntu Community Development Trust – The Nedbank Foundation donated R600 000 towards renovations and building three new houses for older children. The project was selected because it addresses the fundamental rights of children, ie education and health, in poverty-stricken areas where HIV/Aids and unemployment are rife.

Learners from Is’lihle Primary School with Nedbank CE, Tom Boardman. Children from the school read to Exco members during the Nedbank Readathon week.

SOCIOECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

Through its socioeconomic development focus, the Nedbank Foundation is working to address unemployment by helping people to improve their skills. A particular area of focus is the training of women and youth, while enterprise development – through funding and seed capital provision – also enjoys significant support. The following are some of the projects supported in 2009:

Women Poultry Project – The project aims to assist women from previously disadvantaged rural communities by empowering them to play a role in contributing to the socioeconomic development of the areas in which they live. The Nedbank Foundation donated R230 000 towards purchasing chicken houses and chicks to enable the women to get their farming activities underway.
The Bulunga Incubator – This not-for-profit association is based in Nqileni Village in the Xhora Mouth Administrative Area of the Eastern Cape. The Nedbank Foundation donated R109 537 towards a borehole to provide drinking water and enable the community to maintain food gardens.

VOLUNTEERISM

While much of the support provided by the Nedbank Foundation is, of necessity, financial, the group makes every effort to enhance the effectiveness of its interventions by combining financial support with ongoing staff volunteerism. By partnering with its staff and clients, Nedbank Group has been able to make a tangible and sustainable impact on many smaller organisations that are often overlooked by large CSI initiatives.

Nedbank Group runs two hugely successful staff volunteerism programmes, known as Team Challenge and Local Hero. Both of these afford employees of the group (and in the case of the Local Hero Programme, clients as well) the opportunity to work with causes of their choosing.

In addition to the social benefits of staff volunteerism, Nedbank Group also regards staff volunteerism as a critical element of its cultural transformation journey. Engaging with staff is central to organisational development and transformation and ultimately to the bank’s cultural sustainability and resilience. Accordingly, we have chosen to capture details and examples of our staff volunteerism programmes under the Cultural sustainability section of this report. For further information regarding various staff volunteerism programmes please refer here.

MAKING HEROES OF OUR CLIENTS

The Nedbank Foundation has also created an opportunity for the bank’s clients to make a real difference in their communities by allowing them to nominate a cause close to their hearts to receive funding through the Nedbank Local Hero Programme. In 2007 the successful Nedbank Staff Local Hero Programme was extended to existing and prospective Nedbank clients to encourage volunteerism among South Africans and extend Nedbank Group’s charitable reach even further into the communities in which it operates around the country.

Through the Local Hero Programme, Nedbank clients are able to make the bank aware of needs within their communities, many of which are often overlooked by traditional CSI initiatives. During 2009 R1,4 million was distributed to a variety of community projects, including childcare, care of the elderly, HIV/Aids education and care for abused women and children as well as animal rehabilitation.

Any client of Nedbank can become a ‘local hero’ and apply for a R10 000 donation to the cause with which he or she is involved.

Nedbank staff hand over Local
Hero donations to clients who
are commited to Making Things
Happen in their communities.

Following are a few examples of Nedbank Client Local Hero projects undertaken during 2009:

The Southern Disabled Sports Association, Lenasia (Gauteng), began as a group of five mobility impaired/disabled members whose ambition was to establish a basketball team. Their theme is 'Believe in Yourself … Aggressively’ and they intend to become a conduit for people with disabilities to 'come out of their shells' in a sporting environment. The team has now grown to 22 members with various disabilities. The team has been training in normal wheelchairs, but need to acquire proper game chairs to avoid injuries and also need to raise money to buy new basketball chairs. The R10 000 donation from the Nedbank Local Heroes Programme has contributed to the initial R25 000 that they were raising to buy the chairs.

The South African Marine Rehabilitation Centre – SAMREC, Port Elizabeth, is a marine rehabilitation centre that rescues and rehabilitates animals in need of help and, where possible, returns them to the wild. It responds to major oil spills on the coasts to rehabilitate any compromised marine life. SAMREC also aims to educate people on how to care for and conserve marine life and needs donations to help sustain and grow the facilities. The R10 000 donation from the Nedbank Client Local Hero Programme has contributed to the extension of the facility in Cape Recife, Port Elizabeth.

Rotary Anns Amanzimtoti, KwaZulu-Natal – The main function of Rotary Anns of South Africa is to support members in their chosen projects, which include centres for abused women and children, counselling and support, early-learning programmes for preprimary teachers from disadvantaged areas and feeding schemes. The Rotary clubs function on donations, which help to sustain their programmes and projects. Rotary Anns used the R10 000 donation from Nedbank to fund several of the projects.

Return to top