The effective management of corporate social investments in South Africa continues to play a critical role in supporting social investors to develop and implement relevant responses to the triple burdens of poverty, inequality and unemployment in South Africa.
Tshikululu Social Investments, established in 1998, is a social investment fund manager and advisor, working alongside investors and other development partners to leverage and maximise the power of social investments to achieve impact.
Their clients consist of an array of industry giants, including 20 social investment fund management clients, who during the past year invested more than R800m in support of social investment initiatives across numerous development sectors.
“When we started off on 1 July 1998, we were really excited to develop a model for outsourcing corporate social investment, a first of its kind in South Africa,” says Tshikululu CEO Tracey Henry, who has been with the company since inception and has fulfilled the role of CEO since 2008.
“The success of our outsourcing operating model has been to ensure that we work closely with our social investment clients’ internal teams to ensure alignment with their overall business strategies, vision and values and to effectively manage the risks inherent with managing social investment funds”.
Tshikululu has also expanded to provide advisory services to align with the changing environment in which its social partners operate by applying the principles of sustainability, which is core to its work, to also focus on environmental, social and governance (ESG), more specifically the social imperatives aligned to supporting the social criteria required to build thriving communities.
“We are really excited to be working with a number of our partners to support their journey as they develop and bed down ESG frameworks as part of their business imperatives,” Henry says.
Chairperson of Tshikululu, Godfrey Gomwe, describes the strategic change within the organisation, citing the importance of expanding their services to accommodate the changing needs of their clients. “We have intentionally concentrated on expanding from purely providing traditional social investment fund management services to include a much broader field of sustainability advisory, supporting our clients to develop strategies that are aligned to their overall business objectives, societal long-term sustainability goals and to strengthen their response to the ESG issues facing their particular industry and communities.”
“Whether supporting the effective management of social investment vehicles, such as community trusts, corporate social investment foundations or philanthropic trusts or advising our clients on their investments and impact measurement and management, our focus is always on long-term sustainable initiatives and how we ultimately address poverty, inequality and unemployment,” says Henry.
“It is a real privilege to work with social investors who embrace a long-term sustainability lens, our on-the-ground implementing partners and the best-in-class social impact specialists in the country. Everybody plays an incredible role in making our work possible and to ensure that we can maximise the power of social investment to achieve impact and ultimately, a world where everyone has the opportunity to thrive,” Henry says.
Go to www.tshikululu.org.za for more information.
