The Investing Awards celebrate their 19th year. Convener Sudley Adams reflects on their development as a premier corporate social investment accolade
When I started working on the Investing Awards 10 years ago, CSI was a small idea, but it has subsequently grown in leaps and bounds.
I joined the project in a consultancy capacity way back in 1998 and still remember my first meeting with the South African Grantmakers’ Association under the leadership of Mokheti Moshoeshoe.
In those early years, despite a poor economic climate, many organisations showed their commitment to local communities.
This was the birth of a trend for South African businesses to give money to “worthy causes”. But companies soon realised that they also wanted a return on CSI monies.
As the awards became increasingly recognised in both the corporate arenas and the not-for-profit sectors, so too an introduction of more categories and criteria emerged.
At this stage the Global Reporting Initiative and the King II report became benchmarks for social investment practices and emphasised that companies invest more in the triple bottom line.
The new millennium saw the introduction of the Investing in Life awards, which highlighted the HIV/Aids epidemic. With it an increasing number of companies implemented HIV/Aids programmes and policies, as well as produced reports on their economic, environmental and social performance.
The awards further expanded to include Enterprise Development and Investing in Education.
Having witnessed the growth in the entries received and the quality of work being done, I remain optimistic that South Africans will continue to help our government in reaching its millennium goals.