ADVERTORIAL BY SAB FOUNDATION
SAB Foundation Impact investment needs to be measured to be sustainable
T
he South African corporate sector invests millions each year to support community development and social programmes. Many corporations, however, often lack the tools to measure and report on the impact of these initiatives. Often organisations report on the actions taken, input and investment rather than the outcomes. Along with this, every organisation has its own success metrics and some of these are challenging as they do not measure true impact. “It is vital that organisations track the ongoing impact of their social investments,” says Bridgit Evans, Director of the SAB Foundation. “By doing this, it means that social issues can be accurately identified and addressed.” “It also makes it possible for other organisations to benchmark their performance, share best practice and collectively enhance their impact,” she continues.
“In a country with such high unemployment, and so much investment going into entrepreneurship, gathering and sharing data really needs to become the norm.” “To effectively measure the impact of our entrepreneurship programmes, each year we release an impact report that summarises the achievements of each of the entities that we support,” explains Evans. “Drawing on information gathered from participants of our key programmes, we outline progress that they have made, as well as areas for improvement. Through this, we aim to promote transparent reporting while also ensuring that our efforts remain relevant.” Since inception, more than R425-million in grant funding, business development support and interest-free loans has been invested in entrepreneurs by the foundation. A total of 2 843 rural micro-enterprises, 173 social innovators and 996 entrepreneurs have been
16 | Public Sector Leaders | February 2022
supported, with 94% of these businesses still in operation. “Interestingly, responses from our annual surveys have indicated that each entrepreneur lives with between one and eight people who are financially dependent on the income that their businesses bring in every month,” says Evans. “As such, we conservatively estimate that, if each of the 9 036 people employed by our entrepreneurs supports four people, a total of 36 144 people have indirectly been supported.” “The COVID-19 pandemic was devastating for many entrepreneurs. We decided that it was our duty to protect the investments we had already made into so many entrepreneurs and social innovators,” says Evans. “In 2020 we made R20-million in relief funding available to 90 entrepreneurs and provided useful information, hosted webinars and assisted with supportive mentors.
