The Art of Networking

I’m citing this article from The Times of South Africa because it gives a convincing secular argument on the value of collaboration – in this case to to help Africans “get rid of the scourge of poverty and uplift millions of poor South Africans.”

Citing Trialogue: Philip Brink Published: Nov 24, 2007

Dave

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This week, Trialogue — a corporate social investment (CSI) specialist and publisher of The CSI Handbook — held its inaugural “Making CSI Matter” conference at the Indaba Hotel in Johannesburg.

Attended by about 250 delegates, the conference brought together leading local and international CSI practitioners and development experts to debate and workshop some of the most pressing issues shaping CSI practice in South Africa.

According to the commemorative 10th edition of The CSI Handbook, launched at the conference, corporate South Africa spent a collective R3.2-billion on CSI initiatives over the last 12 months. While this figure is dwarfed by government spending on social development, businesses’ professional approach means they are often able to punch well above their weight. Yet the conference highlighted that companies could achieve so much more if they worked together on their CSI projects.

The message was clear: South African companies need to collaborate more closely if they are to help government get rid of the scourge of poverty and uplift millions of poor South Africans. (Emphasis added)

Until now, companies have mostly approached their social investment in isolation from each other. Given the marketing mileage and branding potential of some CSI projects, it is perhaps understandable that companies are guarded when it comes to sharing accolades. And tackling projects alone makes for simpler project management and decision-making.

But companies that do not collaborate on their social projects miss many opportunities:

Most obviously, partnerships provide a larger pool of financial resources and the potential for large-scale social impact;

Individual companies, which have relatively narrow skills bases, can address the holistic needs of a social project by pooling these resources;

Since CSI is not — and should not be — a competitive area for businesses, companies that share their experiences and developmental expertise help to improve the body of knowledge for the general good; and

An isolated approach to CSI means that companies have limited knowledge of which development sectors and geographic areas their peers are supporting, which leads to wasteful over- and under-allocation of resources.

The “Making CSI Matter” conference was an effort to share knowledge.

It also saw the launch of an exciting new initiative, the CSI Mapping Project. This joint effort between Old Mutual, Trialogue and Naledi Development is a real-time, visual geographical information system that tracks companies’ CSI spending by geographic region and development focus area.

Participating companies can therefore establish where the greatest development needs are, what types of intervention are most likely to be suitable and, crucially, what other companies are already doing.

Filed under: Africa, Strategies, partnerships on April 4th, 2008