SAB Foundation: Impact investment needs to be measured to be sustainable

SAB Foundation: Impact investment needs to be measured to be sustainable

The 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 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. The most heartwarming takeaway from this process was how innovative our entrepreneurs were and how quickly they pivoted and adapted.”

“As we look back at the past two years, we are humbled by the resilience shown by our entrepreneurs and continue to support them to ensure that they achieve their goals,” says Evans.

14% of businesses were able to respond to the pandemic by providing services such as medications, personal protective equipment and community patrollers

“Through the ongoingmentorship and businesssupport services offered throughour programmes, we hope tocontinue to equip businessesand individuals to grow and beconfident about their future.”

“It is our genuine hope thatmany more companies andorganisations that work withentrepreneurs start measuringtheir impact. By learning fromeach other, we can fast trackour progress towards successfulinterventions, accelerate jobcreation and, by extension, bringabout an improvement to theoverall quality of life for all SouthAfricans,” says Evans.

“We remain open to supporting any organisation that wants to start measuring its impact in this space and will make all of our tools available to them. We will also host a series of webinars through the course of this year, to assist businesses to understand impact measurement.” concludes Evans.

To access the latest SAB Foundation impact report, visit: sabfoundation.co.za/resources

COVID-19 RELIEF FUNDING IMPACT

The SAB Foundation followed up the funding process by tracking the impact of COVID-19 on businesses. One year after the entrepreneurs received the relief funding, they were asked to complete a survey reporting on their results.

“The percentage of businesses that were negatively impacted by the lockdowns was 84%. 91% saw a decrease in turnover and 54% had to decrease the number of people they employed,” reports Evans. “However, it was encouraging that 14% of businesses were able to respond to the pandemic by providing services such as medications, personal protective equipment and community patrollers.”

According to Evans, in addition to the funding provided, 57% of businesses were able to access other relief funding through TERS, UIF and the IDC. “Despite the effects of the pandemic and subsequent lockdowns, we were very pleased to see that all of the businesses that we invested in had survived twelve months later. In addition, 85% entrepreneurs said that they would not have survived without the relief funds,” she added.

ABOUT THE SAB FOUNDATION

Founded in 2010, the SAB Foundation provides funding for small, medium and micro-sized enterprises in order to contribute to the economic and social empowerment of historically disadvantaged persons through entrepreneurship development.

The SAB Foundation’s primary beneficiaries are women, youth, people living with disabilities and people living in rural areas, from low-income backgrounds.

More than R425-million to date has been invested in social innovation, disability empowerment and SMMEs. •

FIND US ONLINE:

Facebook | Twitter | Instagram: @sabfoundationsa

Website: sabfoundation.co.za