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The Nedbank Foundation
Established in 1992 as the primary CSI arm of Nedbank Group, the Nedbank Foundation, plays a huge role in enabling the group to achieve its Deep Green aspiration of ‘being highly involved in the community and environment’. This it does by contributing to community upliftment and development programmes that are both empowering and sustainable – and by encouraging others to do the same.
To ensure the long-term effectiveness of the contributions it makes the foundation restricts its CSI efforts and contributions to the following key focus areas:
| Education: | Assistance was given to a variety of school-based educational projects, early-childhood development, rural-school refurbishment, support for teacher training initiatives, support to tertiary 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 that serve vulnerable groups. | ||
| Socioeconomic development: |
Support for a variety of skills development and enterprise development projects. | ||
| Staff 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 2008, 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. Funding is granted to non-profit organisations and community-based organisations, schools and tertiary institutions. Political organisations and exclusive (discriminatory) cultural organisations are excluded. Great care is taken to ensure that funds are properly administered, insisting that governing boards run clean and sound administrations.
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 undertakes a visit of the project to confirm facts.
- The Nedbank Foundation ensures that proper financial control measures and governance structures exist within projects.
- Confirmation of cofunders’ names is done to eliminate the possibility of a conflict of interest, avoid 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.
Qualifying criteria: Projects must fall within the specified focus areas, be sustainable and, where feasible, must qualify for a minimum of three years’ investment support.
Accountability agreements are signed by the Nedbank Foundation and relevant organisation. Projects are monitored periodically by portfolio managers, who provide the foundation with written observation reports. The head of the Nedbank Foundation also conducts independent annual visits to all major projects, to ascertain that the project is indeed utilising the funds granted for the purpose they were granted. This gives the Nedbank Foundation the opportunity to obtain a first-hand evaluation of the impact that such projects have on the beneficiaries.
DISBURSEMENTS
During 2008 Nedbank Group, through its foundation, spent R43,5 million (2007: R30,29 million) in support of more than 200 projects.
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