Spotlight on Warren Farrer AND THE CALL TO ACTION FROM THE DO MORE FOUNDATION

By Lorraine Kinnear

The Price Water Coopers’ Workforce of the Future Report forecasts “A Green World” – a world where corporate responsibility reigns supreme and is no longer a nice-to-have, but rather a business necessity. This would be distinguished by a strong social conscience, a sense of environmental responsibility, a focus on diversity and human rights, and a recognition that business has a far-reaching impact. Workers and customers expect businesses to do the right thing for their employees and the rest of the world. Trust is the fundamental currency that underpins both business and employment. Therefore, companies must put their societal purpose at the center of their business strategy and today, organisations are in full swing as they attempt to embrace a world under this thinking.

Warren Farrer is the Foundation Executive of the DO MORE FOUNDATION, which he was instrumental in establishing while serving as RCL FOODS' Corporate Social Investment Executive. Warren holds a Bachelor of Commerce (honours), a Post Graduate Diploma in Business Management, and a Masters of Business Administration. With a marketing career spanning many large South African companies including Dunlop Tyres, BMW South Africa, Lion Match, and Adcock Ingram, Warren particularly prides himself in his 20 years spent at RCL FOODS, the last 13 years of which he has been responsible for CSI and more recently, heading up the DO MORE FOUNDATION.

Here he believes to have found his passion and love within his field, leading a highly energetic, brave, passionate, and skilled team to accomplish incredible things as they drive social impact for children. Warren's passion for supporting optimal early childhood development and his long-held dream of positively impacting young lives is today realised through this Foundation.

A snapshot of The DO MORE FOUNDATION

The DO MORE FOUNDATION is a proudly South African independent non-profit organization with the vision and mission of inspiring more people and organizations to 'create better tomorrows for South Africa's young children and their families'. The Foundation has formally identified itself as a Backbone Support Organization within a Collective Impact framework since 2019. The Foundation believes that complex problems require dynamic collaborative solutions and thus, the Foundation serves as a support and enablement organization for community development from the ground up.

DO MORE FOUNDATION runs community development initiatives and implements various national programs to help vulnerable young children and their families. The national programs are centered on nutrition, early childhood education, and parent or caregiver support. The Foundation’s deep dive community development initiatives drive systemic change by bringing together a range of partners to implement a comprehensive basket of quality services to meet the developmental rights and needs of young children, as outlined in the National Integrated Early Childhood Development (ECD) Policy.

The community development initiatives further support parents and caregivers through Enterprise Development projects that generate sustainable income for households with young children, also creating job opportunities in the local community. The Foundation believes that it is critical to collaborate with key public and private stakeholders to meet the needs of young children and as such, sees its role as one of facilitating partnerships, effective collaboration, resource mobilization, and policy implementation aimed at improving the environment for the optimal development of young children.

DO MORE’s Sustainable Development

The Foundation is steadfast in its commitment to driving long-term systemic change to improve learning, health, and social outcomes for young children and their families.

“We continuously develop innovative strategies to ensure an effective and scalable working model by refining our Theory of Change, developing risk mitigation strategies, and catalysing new partnerships that enable an environment in which young children and their families can thrive,” asserts Warren.

Partnerships are essential to the work of the Foundation on a national and local level. Private-public partnerships (PPPs) have been well documented and lauded for their ability to leverage the strengths of all stakeholders for the greater good.

“The Foundation prioritises resource mobilisation and capacity building through our unique collective impact approach to the work we do – catalysing our link to business through RCL FOODS” asserts Warren.

“Our advocacy and communication strategy increases demand for high-quality ECD services while also informing stakeholders about the sector's needs and successes,” he adds.

The Foundation’s work supports many Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Amongst others, the Foundation contributes to the good health and nutrition of parents and caregivers through nutrition support and nutrition education, including supporting breastfeeding promotion programs that are linked to maternal and child health indicators; providing early learning resources that support learning through play as an investment in ensuring better livelihoods for young children as well as enabling early learning programs to empower and support high-quality early childhood education. The DO MORE FOUNDATION also provides add- ed support through center-based and out-of-center ECD services.

“As an organization that is driving social change, particularly in the lives of young children, it is critical that the Foundation's programs are strongly aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals. This is especially important because the United Nations' guidance can serve as an important framework for measuring the impact of the Foundation's work,” says Warren.

DO MORE Impact

In addition to their deep dive community-focused work, The Foundation has launched several National Young Child programs aimed at improving nutrition, early learning, and providing support to parents and caregivers at scale.

Their network of programmes continues to bear fruit. As of 2022, the Foundation has distributed a total of 18,355,373 meals over 9 provinces. 78,892 Children have been positively impacted through community programmes, 62,644 children impacted www.domore.org.za through national programmes and 1,222 ECD programmes and 877 ECD workers have been directly impacted by the Foundation’s work.

Across the continent more organisations are investing quite substantially in uplifting and improving livelihoods as well as taking better care of their surroundings. In the Sub-Saharan region a few examples of organisations that have invested a lot into ensuring that their profits get ploughed into driving social good do stand out, and one such example is the South African based DO MORE FOUNDATION, anchored by the support of its corporate founding body, RCL FOODS and Warren has its Founder, who at the time was the Corporate Social Investment Executive at RCL FOODS. Efforts continue to drive an innovative collective impact approach to tackling some of South Africa's toughest challenges in some of its poorest areas, with the needs of youngest citizens firmly at its center.