Winner — Best Corporate Employee Community Involvement Programme: FirstRand Volunteers Programme, including FNB and RMB volunteer initiatives
When First National Bank’s Mpumalanga coordinator Natalie Robinson read in a local newspaper about five jackal puppies that had been rescued in a sugarcane plantation, she decided to step in and help. The jackals had been saved by a wildlife rehabilitation centre near Nelspruit, which was appealing for assistance to build them an enclosure.
Robinson contacted the owner of the Second Chance Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre, Frith Douglas, and then briefed the FNB volunteer committee in Nelspruit about what needed to be done. The volunteers decided to help build the jackal enclosure as a priority project and so began a long-term relationship that has not only seen the five jackals released back into the wild but also raised much-needed funds and provided hands-on assistance for the wildlife centre.
Identifying local community needs and supporting company employees who are inspired to help out is the foundation of the FirstRand Volunteers’ Programme, the corporate umbrella that includes the FNB Mpumalanga volunteers. The R50 000 it raised for wildlife rehabilitation in the past year may be a small part of the R4-million secured by the national programme during 2009-2010, but it made a big difference to the lives of Douglas and her wild charges.
“Without the support of the FNB volunteers, we would not have been able to house, rehabilitate and release several wild species in our care,” she says. “The involvement of the corporate sector is vital to the success of organisations such as ours.”
Second Chance is just one of the many community-based projects that have benefited from the R15.4-million donated in time and money by FirstRand employee volunteers since 2003. The FirstRand Group and its divisions — First National Bank, Rand Merchant Bank, OUTsurance and WesBank — have matched the volunteer contribution with a further R15.4-million.
This financial contribution to society, combined with the reach and spirit of the group’s employee community involvement programme, saw FirstRand singled out for the second time by the Investing in the Future judges panel — it won this category in 2008.
Sizwe Nxasana, chief executive of FirstRand Limited, says the programme was built on the realisation that most people want to give something back to society, but they need an enabling environment. “The most important thing to recognise is that companies are made up of individuals and if they have a heart, the company has a heart.”
With the support of top management across the group, a dedicated programme manager, Desiree Storey, and a volunteer coordinator in each brand, an estimated 22% of the group’s total employee complement of 43 000 has participated in the programme to date.Storey says the programme forms the internal component of the group’s corporate social investment project.
“Every year all companies in the FirstRand Group contribute 1% of their after-tax profits to the FirstRand Foundation,” she says. “The foundation follows a programmatic approach and channels these monies into specific sectors, including early childhood development, [halting] gender-based violence, child welfare, arts and the environment.”
Employee volunteers are matched rand for rand for their donations and fundraisers. Time dedicated to projects is also matched financially, depending on the number of employees and the time involved. Storey says the programme has become entrenched in company culture through training workshops for interested employees, regular audits of volunteer projects and annual recognition awards supported by top management of the group.
Volunteers are given compulsory training in how to work with beneficiaries and are encouraged to develop long-term relationships with them. Last year the programme hosted a “community conversation” with 36 beneficiary organisations to get feedback on whether the volunteers “help or hinder” their work.
Storey says this comprehensive approach has not only brought employees closer to the communities in which they operate but has also increased cohesion within the group. “The volunteers programme is a good example of collaboration, coordination and sharing –the different divisions coming together — to work as a group to make a positive difference to our society,” she says.
Fiona Macleod’s article was made possible through funding from the Open Society Foundation for South Africa’s Media Fellowship Programme
Volunteer, educate, build
The judges rewarded the FirstRand Group and its divisions as a collective. The group’s entries this year included:
- FNB Commercial Banking Life Skills and Mentorship Programme: Initiated in 2006, this programme has seen the rollout of educational mini-enterprise courses in several parts of the country. Volunteers contribute their own time to transfer business skills to students from underprivileged schools over a 22-week period every year. The programme is funded by the division and matched funding earned by FNB Commercial staff and is a partnership with entrepreneurial education service provider Junior Achievement South Africa.
- FNB Branch Banking Volunteers Mpumalanga: Besides assisting the Second Chance Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre, branch volunteers in the province raised close to R1-million by participating in volunteer activities in the past year.
- FNB Western Cape employees have supported a number of volunteer projects, including the building of homes for needy families with Habitat for Humanity, working with young offenders at the Pollsmoor prison in collaboration with Dreamfields, assistance with the repair of primary schools in partnership with “Fix My Schoo” and numerous fundraisers in support of the FirstRand Group annual winter drive.
- The FNB Eastern Cape Simunye Project: In collaboration with DaimlerChrysler, FNB volunteers funded and built a day-care centre in an informal settlement that now accommodates 60 children and six staff. An FNB staff member resigned to become the project manager and run the centre.
- The Rand Merchant Bank NPO/NGO Leadership Workshops: RMB volunteers provide business expertise to an NGO forum, help NGOs see through a business lens and provide opportunities for NGOs to network and form a community of best practice.
- The RMB Hug Fund was launched during the Mozambique floods in 2000. Staff raised and donated more than R6-million to a variety of charities and community initiatives in the past nine years.