First Rand Limited’s Volunteers programme known as Beyond Painting Classrooms (BPC) in collaboration with Charities Aid Foundation Southern Africa seeks to encourage employee volunteering that is strategic and meaningful in South Africa.
BPC hosts a conference every two years, the most recent of which was held on the 11th and 12 of September 2019 at The Wanderer’s Club, Johannesburg. This year’s theme was “Inspiring Employee Volunteering” and sessions focused on making employee volunteering count, collaborating for change, and the future of employee volunteering. A session on the future of employee volunteering had three presentations from different companies. Chris Venter, director of business development at Benevity, spoke about successful business strategies. He mentioned that purpose-driven companies are more sought after than other types of companies. He said, “corporate purpose is a team effort. Much more than just CSI”. In explanation, he offered that the shareholder value of a business is important and is the “holy grail” of volunteering. He concluded by stating that employee volunteering should be easy, “from a company perspective. Companies should be able to read what their clients and employees want and implement those needs effectively.
Ahmed Bham, from Gift of the Givers, spoke after Venter. He emphasized the need for South African business to focus on local needs. He said, “If Africans don’t focus on Africa, then nobody will focus on Africa”. Bham was referring to the fact that some Southern African NGO’s fail to prioritise their beneficiaries, as such, the NGO would take up to 80%, and give 20% to the beneficiary. He said, “An important question to ask is ‘what is the beneficiary getting?’” The emphasis, he suggests, should be on ensuring that the beneficiary receives above all others.
Agnetta Nyalita, the regional representative for the International Association for Volunteer Effort (IAVE) Africa, was the last presenter of the session. She started her presentation by speaking about the gap that exists in employee volunteering in Africa.
She said, “We have not acknowledged the economic value of volunteering. Corporates need to think about this very seriously. She continued to mention the different ways in which African countries conduct their CSI/R and said it’s important for corporates to know how to engage with different countries so as not to cause offense. An example she used was to say that volunteering in Northern African countries is culturally and religiously led, whereas volunteering in Southern Africa is more reliant on donors and external funding.
The conference gave all attendees the chance to engage with ways in which to improve employee volunteering and broaden it for the countries betterment.
by Linda Buthelezi
