Corporations, Community, Private-Public Sector Partnerships (PPPs)

and Community Foundations: The South African Case

Fikile B. Kuhlase, Senior Fellow, International Fellows Program ~ 2005

 

Abstract: In her paper, Fikile Kuhlase discusses the emergent trend of corporations supporting community foundation-like organizations.  She highlights the strategic intervention of the Industrial Development Corporation of South Africa (IDC), a development finance institution.  The IDC is described as the first corporation in South Africa to adopt the community foundation concept as part of its strategy for socio-economic transformation and “broad-based” black economic empowerment (BEE). Of note in the IDC model is that community foundations take up an equity stake in IDC-funded projects; the South African government, through the Minister of Trade and Industry, is the sole shareholder; and corporate social investment is viewed as central to business activity. 

 

Ms. Kuhlase focuses her research on philanthropic efforts that engage the three sectors: civil society and the private and public sectors. To provide a comparative context for the IDC model, she analyzes collaborative philanthropic approaches that involve community foundations in ten countries: the United Kingdom, Russia, Mexico, Bulgaria, the Baltic States, the Slovak Republic, Germany, Italy, the USA and Canada.  She draws on country cases to identify meaningful models in order to address the challenges of the IDC-supported community development foundations (identified as community foundation-like organizations).

 

Lessons learned include the following: 

 

  • State intervention in emerging community foundations is frequent, mainly as a co-funder and/or participant in governance structure, and is not limited to developmental transitional states;
  • New forms of governance are necessary to facilitate collaborative philanthropy. The challenge in states (like South Africa) where corporations drive philanthropy is to make
  • giving more inclusive by finding ways to involve wealthy individuals, institutions, and the community at large;
  • Assessments of vertical (rich to poor) and horizontal (poor to poor) giving highlight the need for South Africa’s vast rural community to adopt philanthropic frameworks that are inclusive and that acknowledge that everyone is a both a prospective donor and a beneficiary;
  • The asset-building, grantmaking, and community leadership functions common to community foundations underscore the importance of having a committed and capable community leadership.

 

In conclusion, Ms. Kuhlase argues in favor of a model that places the community foundation at the center of a tripartite alliance between civil society and the private and public sectors. She concludes that community foundations are well positioned to take the lead in forging mutually beneficial partnerships in order to promote the common good, and describes community foundations that choose not to tackle social justice issues as wasting their potential to be catalysts for social change.

                                        
 

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