Corporate philanthropy in South Africa: lessons for local development initiatives

Voluntas, 6:1, 67-83

Karen Paul a

Corporate philanthropy in South Africa: lessons for local development initiatives*

Abstract

Beginning in the late 1970s, US multi-nationals and South African business both supported local development initiatives in Soweto. Com- parison of two of these projects reveals significant differences in approach and effectiveness. American businesses supported a secondary school, Pace, which experienced critical problems related to organisational difficulties unforeseen by the donors. South African business supported an educational centre, the Funda Centre, which developed more gradually and was more deeply rooted in the community. Examination of these two cases produces some lessons that can be of use to other donors giving support to local development initiatives.

In troduct ion

After the 1976 riots in Soweto, corporate donors supported a number of educational projects intended to help upgrade black education in South Africa. Through these efforts corporations intended to accomplish at least three objectives. First, they hoped to expand educational opportunities available to blacks. Second, they aimed to challenge the government's apartheid policies. Third, the multi-nationals thought that these efforts might demonstrate to their critics that their presence in South Africa benefited blacks, and that calls for withdrawal or sanctions were misguided.

Comparison of two of these projects enables identification of some elements that led to the relative success of one and the relative lack of success of the other as measured from the perspective of the late 1980s. Tendencies toward convergence of organisational form and administrative structure for the projects as they evolved in the 1990s can also be observed.

The methodology of comparative case analysis permits us to draw

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lessons for donors of projects aimed at local communities. In particular, the importance of accepting community structures and processes, recognising the necessity of cultivating indigenous leadership and admitting the usefulness of fostering diffused and achievable goals becomes apparent. Furthermore, we describe the merits of 'leading from the middle', whereby staff members and informal community leaders assume authority when highly visible leaders are likely to be subject to attack from either government authorities or from community rivals.

The two educational projects described here, the Funda Centre and Pace, are both located in Soweto, the black township near Johannesburg, South Africa. When these two projects were initially developed, just after the 1976 Soweto riots, the government of South Africa remained committed to apartheid. 1 However, business leaders were experiencing the opprobrium of the international community (Beatty and Harari, 1987; Hayes, 1987) as well as the practical difficulties of trying to do business with a disadvantaged, alienated, politically repressed black population. Illegal strikes by black workers, inadequate education and low skill levels stifled productivity. The buying power of blacks was limited, reducing the markets available for manufacturers and retailers (Lipton, 1988).

International sanctions were being proposed and adopted. Religious leaders were decrying the brutality and injustice of apartheid. Sports and cultural boycotts were isolating South Africa. Business leaders in South Africa and abroad anticipated that, in time, apartheid would inevitably crumble, due to these external pressures and the internal demands of a modern, industrial economy. They intended that the projects they supported in Soweto should help bring about the end of apartheid. US corporations under the influence of the 'Sullivan Principles' formed a group known as the Signatory Association which worked in conjunction with the American Chamber of Commerce ('Amcham'), to support projects designed to help black advancement and community development. 2 Their donations amounted to over US $350 million from 1980 to 1992. One of their early projects was Pace, a business-oriented secondary school.

South African companies also supported a number of community development and educational projects in Soweto. The Urban Foundation served as the main coordinating forum for South African business efforts to mobilise public opinion, to influence government policy and to provide direct assistance to black communities (Steyn, 1987). One of their early projects was the Funda Centre, an educational institution aimed at providing a variety of educational programmes to residents of Soweto.

The following analysis relates especially to the changing economic

Corporate philanthropy in South Africa 69

and political climate in South Africa prior to the lifting of sanctions. The demands on multi-national corporations, arts and cultural groups, academic institutions and development agencies to become more involved in South Africa will grow as the country's problems shift from the political to the economic.

Corporate giving for social change

In the period from the late 1970s to the early 1990s, corporate philanthropy in South Africa was aimed at helping blacks to overcome the disadvantages resulting from apartheid, but also was aimed at creating a new social order. As US companies became more outspoken in promoting the social justice agenda demanded mainly by US constituencies, their position became more vulnerable within the context of South Africa. In this respect US corporate philanthropy in South Africa has been quite different from corporate philanthropy as exercised in less politically volatile settings (Useem, 1987) and from projects supported by Western donors elsewhere in Africa (Anheier, 1987; Sandberg, 1994).

By contrast, South African companies necessarily took a less con- frontational and less public approach with their giving programmes. While the South African companies did not seek such widespread publicity as the US companies often did, nevertheless they developed a long-range and comprehensive approach to helping promote the economic and political development of black communities. The highly visible public posturing of the US companies allowed the South African companies to take a more 'low-key' and perhaps more diplomatic approach v i s a vis the government, and hence to retain considerable authority in official circles that US companies sacrificed.

Pace community college

Planning for Pace, standing for "Planned Advancement of Community Education', began in 1979 as a project of the American Chamber of Commerce located in Johannesburg. IBM was the major source of support for the initial idea of the school, and others included Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing, Xerox, Burroughs and National Cash Register. The idea of establishing the school was proposed at an emotion-laden meeting where spontaneous pledges were elicited in a roll-call type setting with no real attention paid to specific goals or organisational matters. Initially the companies committed a total of 3 million Rand, or US $1.2 million, a sum that grew to a total of lfl

70 Karen Paul

million Rand, or US $4 million by 1986. In the end, donors included 200 corporations, nearly all American, with South African and German companies providing a number of scholarships. The budget called for 85 per cent of the operating expenses to be provided by companies and 15 per cent to come from student fees.

The school opened very quickly, in July 1981, as a commercial high school. Enrollment started at 140 in Grade 8 (in US about age 13; Form I in South African terms) and increased grade by grade in successive years. US companies had wanted to start all grades at once, but this idea was resisted by the headmaster as being too hurried and too likely to fail. The aim of the school was to prepare Soweto youth for careers in business. Subjects included were English, Afrikaans, Mathematics, Economics, Accounting, Business Economics and Typing. US companies hoped that the school would provide its graduates with the skills needed to assume office jobs or to go on to university and study business at a more advanced level. By 1985 it enrolled about 600 students. Students were expected to pay tuition as they would have at any private school, although according to a sliding scale based on family income, and were subject to a rigorous selection process.

Problems with the initial planning of Pace

Unfortunately, Pace, at least in its original form, ultimately became a casualty of the unrest in the townships in 1985-86. Interviews with a number of the community leaders and educational figures who observed it flower with so much hope, only to see it disintegrate several years later, reveal some critical mistakes made by those providing the bulk of its support: that is, representatives of US companies. Donors assumed that their information gathering process and their planning skills would be sufficient to establish a well-functioning school. They valued rapid action over deliberation and community representation. They neglected to become familiar with the community they wished to serve.

The initial planning for the facility was flawed in several respects. First, the physical location of the school was unfortunate. From the outside, Soweto, with its unpaved, rubbish-strewn streets all looked more or less the same. However, to residents of Soweto there were considerable internal differences, with 'good" and 'bad'. In some neighbourhoods youth were interested in education and work; in other parts they were more interested in belonging to gangs, participating in various violent activities and harassing anyone and anything connected with business interests.

Unfortunately, when Pace was constructed, it was situated in one of the latter areas, a neighbourhood known as Jabulani. A school designed to further private education and business interests was set


in one of the poorest areas of Soweto. Students attending school were subject to threats and harassment on good days and outright violence on bad days. Teachers driving to the school had their cars stoned, set on fire and stolen. Security was impossible to maintain, especially in. times of general political unrest.

Another set of problems related to language. Donors decided to conduct education primarily in English with Afrikaans as a second language. The tribal languages spoken in the homes of the students were not used as a medium of education in Pace. This language policy made sense to Western business leaders, since office work in South Africa is conducted in either English or Afrikaans. Furthermore, the demand for English instruction was persistent among black youth in the townships and was supported by the parents of the Pace students.

However, this choice created enormous difficulties. In elementary schools; Soweto youth received only the most rudimentary instruction in English, poor preparation for commercial courses which assumed competence in English. Thus, learning and examination results, were distorted by the students' need to master the language of instruction at the same time that they mastered the subject material.

Problems with the curriculum

The intent of the donors was that the students would pass through a curriculum which would enable them to achieve 'Joint Matriculation Board' level in five years. Students would pass from Grade 8 through Grade 12 (or Form I to Form V), then graduate, taking standard achievement tests given to all students completing secondary school in South Africa ('matrics'), then either matriculate at university or obtain positions in business.

However, this was an ambitious programme considering the educational shortcomings of even a highly selective group of entering students. Students, their families and their communities hoped and expected that they would be obtaining an education comparable to that which might be available to white youth attending a good private school, or even those attending the generously supported public schools for whites. They expected the results of the school leaving exams to be a credit to the school. But the standardised tests compared Pace students to white students who had a long history of privilege and who were being tested in the language they spoke in their homes, either English or Afrikaans. Not surprisingly, the standardised tests threatened the image of the school as an exemplary educational setting.

When school officials anticipated that internally administered standardised tests would produce unfavourable results, they apparently

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falsified test results, further discrediting the school. Later, when the time came for externally administered standardised tests, the township was literally aflame in violence, so tha t students had to be spirited away and illegally boarded in white homes in the suburbs. Not surprisingly, they did very poorly as a group, with only 17 per cent passing in English and even fewer passing the required Afrikaans examination. The vast majority were denied the university exemption which would have entitled them to admission. 3

Another issue associated with curriculum design was the decision to concentrate exclusively on commercial subjects and not to offer traditional academic subjects such as science, music and social studies. Blacks found this school to offer the best hope in Soweto for a good education, yet the dominant white community looked down on commercial education. Graduating from a trade school, even a very good trade school, still would not gain the respect in the outside society that would have come from even a mediocre preparatory school programme. The charge was made that corporate donors were primarily looking after their own interests and their need for good secretaries and clerks, rather than making an authentic commitment to the upgrading of black education.

Furthermore, Pace was created from an American model, assuming that remedial education could solve years of educational inadequacy and also assuming that a variety of career paths and educational opportunities might be available to its graduates. In the US the graduate of a technical high school may have a number of options, including immediate employment, further education at a trade school or at a practical course in a community college, or sometimes entry into a college or university itself, generally with remedial programmes available for students needing special help. Hardly any of these options were available for black students in South Africa.

Administrative and personnel problems

The Board of Directors had been established with 50 per cent black and 50 per cent white members. However, black members were less likely to be regular attenders of board meetings than white members, because the few prominent educated blacks served on a multiplicity of boards and tended to be overcommitted. In addition, blacks were subject to curfews and to other inconveniences of township life that white members escaped. These facts, combined with the superior social status of whites as compared to blacks, meant that black members often felt dominated. When conflict became intense, the board split, with blacks and whites facing off on a variety of policy issues.

A series of personnel problems developed. The first headmaster was


the recently retired head of an exdusive private preparatory school for white boys located in South Africa. This British gentleman was recruited at a cocktail party by corporate decision-makers. Although he was a widely respected educator among whites, he had no experience in black communities. His deputy headmaster, whom he selected, was a literary celebrity, a South African black with American degrees and experience and a rising international reputation as a poet. Unfortunately, the deputy had no experience in running a school or in secondary-level teaching. However, the headmaster defined the deputy's role as to teach and to represent the school externally. Since the headmaster retained control of virtually all administrative work, the deputy felt that his own administrative potential was being thwarted.

A running feud developed between these two individuals. The headmaster generated support from the white members of the board and the white staff, while the deputy headmaster commanded the allegiance of the black members of the board and the black staff. Resentment among the teaching staff grew, especially the black staff, who saw the headmaster as a member of the white power elite, a figurehead hired and compensated at what they considered very high levels to play mainly a public relations function while they did the actual work of the school. Both the headmaster and the assistant headmaster lacked deep roots in the community, as did many of the staff, especially the whites. The staff members who had the deepest community roots had little authority and therefore felt obliged to be excessively diplomatic and uncritical even when they saw mistakes being made by school authorities or by donors. They felt their own leadership potential was not being developed.

The school ultimately faced a crisis when in June of 1986, the township was immersed in violence, and the government declared a state of emergency. Teachers and students were threatened and attacked by violent gangs of youth. Some students became attached to political factions which were striving to follow the African National Congress' directive to make the townships ungovernable. The white teachers resigned, while nearly all of the black teachers stayed on. It was up to the board to decide how to handle the dramatic situation. The black teachers demanded that the white teachers should have their salaries discontinued summarily for having failed to give proper notice. The white teachers, however, declared that they could not travel to school safely and could not do their jobs, that the township disturbances were not their fault and that therefore they should receive compensation for the full academic year.

After a heated discussion, the black members of the Board of Directors resigned en masse because they felt the white members were not sufficiently responsive to the concerns of the black staff. Then the

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board decided to pay the white teachers for the full academic year, although this would deplete the treasury and leave no funds available for operating costs of the coming academic year, and furthermore they declared the school financially insolvent and closed for the coming academic year.

On 13 June 1986 a meeting between donors, the remaining staff and student representatives was held at the Transvaal Auto Club, a golf club in an upper-class white suburb. Emotions ran high. All the black teachers came, as did the black deputy headmaster and about twenty students. Six other students had been arrested at the school by the township police as they prepared for the meeting, charged with possession of banned literature. The school delegation sought to petition the American Chamber of Commerce to help the school, resolve the conflicts and effect whatever reorganisation would be required to enable the school to continue. The response was that the American Chamber of Commerce decided to abandon the project altogether.

But the school refused to close down. It reopened the next academic year on a reduced scale, run by a committee of the teachers and under the leadership of another headmaster. This headmaster was a black educator who was highly respected in Soweto as well in educational circles throughout South Africa. He had earned personal as well as professional credibility by his activities on behalf of community groups. As an educator he had been declared a Communist by the South African government for allowing Robert Kennedy to speak to students while on a tour of Soweto in the 1960s. Further indicators of political acceptability within Soweto were that the new headmaster's passport had been confiscated and he had been detained by the South African police.

However, he faced nearly insurmountable obstacles. The physical plant had deteriorated, typewriters had gone unrepaired, there had been no upgrading of equipment, and the school had no financial reserves. Students still attempted to prepare for the same standardised exams which had served them so poorly in the past, but their expectations of getting university exemptions were lower. Teachers attempted to teach with no supplies, the possibility of no paychecks and the continuing threat of violence. The new headmaster appealed to foreign embassies and companies to give some funding in order to enable the school to continue. After many struggles, some new support was attracted, primarily from diplomatic sources. The school functioned for several years with unstable funding, practically non- existent supply budgets and teachers who seldom knew for sure that they would be paid.


The turnaround of Pace

After the school had struggled independently for several years, a few of its original corporate supporters developed renewed interest in helping it succeed as an institution rooted more firmly in the community than it had been in its first incarnation. At the same time the corporate donors insisted on a higher standard of financial accountability. In 1993, an accountant from the corporate community was 'seconded' to Pace to serve as adviser and liaison between donors and the school. He is the only white person to be seen on school grounds with any regularity, and in 1993 was one of the very few white individuals present in Soweto. Maintaining a low-key presence, he gently conveys corporate expectations to school officials and reports back to donors on the functioning of the school, its needs, and the hopes a n d expectations of its staff and students. Violence continued to plague Soweto until the elections of April, 1994, and other township schools were virtually non-functional for many months, yet Pace was able to maintain its operations under the new generation of black leadership: As we have seen, the turnaround at Pace came only after its initial sponsors washed their hands of any responsibility for the project, and only when it became truly a part of the community it sought to serve.

The Funda Centre

The Funda Centre was founded in the late 1970s as a combination of settlement house, adult education facility, teacher training school and community centre, supported mainly by South African business working through the Urban Foundation. 4 It developed as a joint effort of the South African business community, English and Afrikaner alike, to support projects that would uplift the urban black community while at the same time pressuring the government to make policy changes that would lead to an end of apartheid, the Funda Centre was seven years in planning and organisation, so that its opening was delayed until 1984.

Although funding was provided mainly by the Urban Foundation, a number of sources were cultivated by the Funda Centre. US, British and German companies contributed, as did the American Jewish Committee. Assistance came from the Agency for International Develop- ment and the Canadian International Development Agency. The Paris Chamber of Commerce provided management training. User fees supported a number of classes. The Urban Foundation encouraged the Funda Centre to develop its own funding sources, but slowly and gently. Not until 1987 did the main donor actually have an expectation

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that independent fundraising would occur. In the interim, funding was not lavish but it was steady and dependable, at a level of about 1.4 million Rand, or US $560,000, annually.

The Funda Centre was organised along entirely different lines from any other educational institution in South Africa. It deliberately set out to represent a form of 'alternative' education and to provide a venue which would enable students and teachers to pursue a number of educational objectives that reinforced and supplemented what was being offered elsewhere. For example, within the Funda Centre one section was known as the "reachers" In-Service Training Centre', which included several specialised curricular activities, each run by its own board and with its own community representatives.

Let us examine this range of activities more carefully. First, the organisation was complex, and overlapping groups of clients were served by programmes meeting at different times. One consequence was that adults and children were likely to be coming and going on variable schedules, typically in non-competitive settings, with a heavy emphasis on the arts, both visual and performing. For example, a choir called Imilonji was comprised of more than fifty adults. For younger participants, the Madimba Institute of African Music was founded in 1986 to provide instruction for school leavers (high school attenders), part-time adult students, and to develop a limited programme based in two primary schools, with expansion into secondary schools coming after these programmes. The African Institute of Art ran three programmes in cooperation with universities, as well as a Saturday class for part-time students and children. A typical programme was a six-week course for fifteen teachers with the intent that they would use their training to upgrade the quality of art being taught in black primary schools.

In the 1990s a crisis occurred at the Funda Centre, with some of the community leaders of Soweto charging that the project was elitist and not truly a part of the community. The Urban Foundation became concerned that the Funda Centre was over-extended, lacking a clear mission. The long-time white administrator departed and was replaced by an acting black administrator. However, the actual management of the facility was quietly turned over to a non-profit organisation with a variet~ of other educational interests and facilities serving black communities. ~ The Urban Foundation continues to be very concerned that the Funda Centre maintain an effective presence in Soweto. It appears likely to evolve into a community college.


Differences between Pace and the Funda Centre

Pace was quickly organised and exemplified the much heralded 'Amer- ican can do spirit.' However, what was to be done was much less thoroughly examined and coordinated with community needs and capabilities than it might have been. Donors approached the project as if it were much like setting up a model American school. They did not fully realise the way in which the school leaving exams would reflect on the performance of the school and would determine the self-esteem and the career potential of the students. There was simply no way to obscure or gloss over shortcomings when students did pc~grly. The black students of Soweto, even the most highly motivated and most intensely coached, could not compete with well-to-do sub- urban whites on the basis of the few years of special schooling provided by Pace. The shortcomings of the township elementary schools and the circumstances of life in the townships during a time of intense political conflict were too significant.

The Funda Centre took much longer to get organised and to develop programmes. In fact, it was seven years from the time when planning initially began to its opening in 1984. During this time intense dis- cussions took place between the funders and community leaders. The organisational chart of the Funda Centre was extremely complicated right from the beginning. Its goals were many, its projects were diverse, and the number of people involved in its administration on both a paid and voluntary basis were numerous.

Although it was started by Urban Foundation, it became an independent entity during this planning stage. It was given its name by a resident of Soweto, and came to serve as a showcase for the arts in Soweto as well as a centre for educational programmes. Whites were always included in the leadership of the Funda Centre, but they were always in a minority. There was a heavy emphasis on recruiting black leaders, especially those who were educationally and politically experienced. At the same time, a high degree of accountability was maintained between donors and recipients. Liaison was steady, if low-key, and management problems were dealt with quietly but firmly when they arose.

Whereas Pace was located in the middle of Soweto, the Funda Centre was located on its very periphery. Access was easy from the outside, and escape from it was easy when there was physical danger from either the neighbourhood or the police. Automobiles coming to and from the centre were not so vulnerable to attack. The expertise of the community enabled the funders of the Funda Centre to choose a site with some insight into community dynamics, whereas the limited knowledge of the Pace funders led them to place the school in a

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location prone to problems. There was little emphasis on documenting achievements at the Funda

Centre. Typical was the statement, 'It would be good to find out if teachers who attended our tutorials obtain better examination results than others, but that we're unlikely to discover" (Teachers" Centre, 1985). No one wanted to know in concrete terms what was successful and what was not successful. Rather, the process of programme evolution occurred informally and gradually. No one lost face because a programme was officially declared a failure or shown to be a failure by some external assessment.

By contrast, the founders of Pace immediately broadcast their expectation that the students who attended this school would have performance records second to none, and this expectation was subject to public and external validation with the very first graduating class. Their goals were inflexible, and their shortcomings in achieving these goals were obvious to the public.

When the goals that had been announced with such fanfare were not achieved, the project was seen as a failure by donors and by the residents of Soweto, and the students who failed to measure up to the unrealistic expectations were similarly judged.

The Funda Centre attracted a large and varied clientele, with an average of about 12,000 users per month. It was very flexible in that programmes could be started and stopped as needed. There was room for many different types of participation. Institutes, centres and programmes provided opportunities for many participants to exercise leadership. Since it was heavily patronised by adults who were active as participants and leaders of programmes, and as community representatives, many mentors were present for youth who came to the centre. Particularly, this project was structured so that teenagers did not ou tnumber adults, with the result that considerable informal social control could be exercised on a continuous basis. In contrast, Pace had a fixed adolescent student body whose routines were largely prescribed by state requirements. Flexibility was limited, even when violence in the community became alarming.

Like Pace, the Funda Centre included both blacks and whites in its staff and its various boards. However , the kind of white leadership differed greatly. In the Funda Centre there were a few whites involved over a long period of time, with backgrounds mainly in community organising and social work. In Pace, white representatives came from elite white society and the corporate world. In the Funda Centre the work of the organisation was from the beginning clone mainly b y township residents, whereas at Pace responsibilities were divided equally between blacks and whites, with neither group firmly rooted in the community.


The objectives of the Funda Centre made it possible for it to operate with considerable autonomy from state-prescribed objectives and state supervision. However, the objectives of Pace necessarily made it compete with state-supported education. The corporations who supported Pace assumed that, with their financial support, the educational objectives could be achieved, not realising the impossibility of the task they' had set for themselves and the personal setbacks that they were creating for children who were being inadvertently set up to fail.

Tlie Urban Foundation entered into its commitment with the Funda Centre over a long period of time, during which both donor and recipient were intensely engaged in defining the nature of the organisation, its sources of support, and their goals and objectives. In contrast, the .American Chamber of Commerce and the US corporations, guided by the 'Sullivan Principles', had oriented their goals toward the monitoring system which gave companies Sullivan ratings. The objective of the companies who established Pace, besides contributing to black education, was to gain points on a rating system that graded on input rather than output.

One final point of comparison may seem trivial but is actually of considerable significance. Music and singing are an extremely central part of public life in black South Africa. At nearly any black gathering - - a sewing group, a rent strike, a union meeting, a funeral procession - - singing will be a featured part of the programme. This is less true at white gatherings. The culture at Pace imitated white preparatory schools and its choir sounded like an church choir in England at the opening ceremonies. In contrast, the Funda Centre encouraged the arts of the black community, offering many programmes in the visual arts, music and other performance arts (see Table 1).

Tendencies for convergence in recent years

During the 1990s the political climate in South Africa evolved rapidly. For Pace the early 1990s brought more stability than the tumultuous years at the end of the 1980s, continuing achievement on a modest level, and increased acceptance by the surrounding black community. While other township schools were almost non-functional during the 1993 school year, classes continued at Pace. The staff is now all black and appears to be deeply connected to the community. The headmaster has been engaged in conflict resolution processes sponsored by the Peace Committee under the auspices of the United Nations. The American Chamber of Commerce has resumed support, though more quietly than before, and has instituted more routine monitoring of the school through the daily presence of an informal adviser who was formerly an accountant with one of the donor firms. He is outside

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Table 1. Main differences between Pace and the Funda Centre

Karen Paul

Pace Funda Centre

Publicly stated goals subject to external, objective verification. Generous corporate support subject to annual reassessment and termination. Leadership imported from corporate community based on social connections. Administrators chosen for cosmopolitan credentials. Equal representation of blacks and whites on board of directors and staff. High visibility of corporate sponsors. Physical location vulnerable to violent attack. Corporate donors oriented toward short-term goals, well defined schedules, and measurable achievements. Little concern for drawing out potential of mid-level staff for leadership and programme development. Little incorporation of recipient culture and tradition; focus on that of donors.

Diffuse and general goals not subject to public, external verification. Steady corporate support evolving to independent fundraising.

Leadership recruited from surrounding community based on previous activities. Administrators chosen for credentials in local community. Numerical superiority of blacks over white on governing boards and staff.

Low visibility of corporate sponsors and staff. Physical location minimised likelihood of violent attack. Corporate donors oriented toward long-term goals, flexible schedules, and evolution of programmes.

Mid-level staff and programme leaders exercise considerable leadership and programme initiative.

Celebration of culture and tradition of recipient community.

the formal lines of both organisations and exercises no formal authority. At the Funda Centre some community dissatisfaction developed in

the 1990s around charges that it was an elitist institution not sufficiently rooted in the community and not representative of community needs. From the donor perspective, concern developed over the multiplicity of programmes and the lack of focus which had appeared to be such a source of vitality in its earlier days. As apartheid was officially dismantled, both the recipient community and the donor communi ty felt less need for an alternative forum for educational activities and more need for a regular educational institution. Accordingly, in 1992


planning commenced for the Funda Centre to become a community college to serve the Soweto community.

Lessons from Soweto

What do these examples teach us about the effectiveness of educational projects aimed at contributing to economic growth and political em- powerment? First, for a project genuinely rooted in the community, it is much better to receive a modest amount of support which is dependable and continuing, than to receive a large amount of funding that implies no continuing commitment. Donors should be prepared both to provide ongoing loose oversight and to encourage the maximum possible community participation. Only when communication is 'uncen- sored' will donors be privy to the actual status of the project in the community. Otherwise, a facade will dev.elop to cover up emerging problems until crisis erupts and becomes public. This principle of leadership is well recognisect in South Africa and is known as "leading from the middle'.

The choice of project directors appears to be an important factor as well. Those who maintain an impressive presence in corporate or foundation offices may be too removed from the people who are supposed to be helped by the project. In order for a project to be successful respect for its leaders must be forthcoming from the community, but it must be earned or, better yet, have been earned already by virtue of longstanding community participation. Simply being black proved not to be enough in Soweto, while being white was not necessarily resented.

Setting up equal representation of whites and blacks on boards was an invitation to conflict at Pace. However, at the Funda Centre enough varied boards were created so that many individuals, black and white (but with blacks in the majority), could become involved and hence develop an interest in having the project become successful.

Genuine community representation also requires a long-term time frame. This perspective does not come naturally to US-based corporations, which are oriented toward measurable goals to be achieved quarterly or annually. However, given the political volatility of South Africa, the inexperience of both donors and recipients in black communities, and the overhead created by ongoing violence and political conflict, goal achievement appears as an ongoing process rather than a se~ of ends to be accomplished.

All of these recommendations can be summarised in one general operating principle. When donors seek to support projects in a community where they are outsiders, it requires considerable local contacts and key officials recognised in the local community. These local leaders,

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facilitators and mobilisers are less likely to be found in the 'normal circles" of donors than they are to be found in the very communi ty that the donor wants to support.

For donors, the type of ongoing commitment required to maintain liaison with projects in communit ies such as Soweto requires them to move outside the donor organisation and its culture. Generally, man- agers are inclined by temperament and by training to look for concrete results, and to want to achieve certain goals within a given t ime frame. However , this may not be a helpful orientation when communi ty needs are actually considered pa ramount in importance, and when communi ty suppor t is required.

In a communi ty such as Soweto, the sincerity and integrity of any outside donor are likely to be questioned. The respect of the communi ty must be earned rather than assumed. Donors may incorporate these challenges as routine in establishing local projects, accepting the expertise and the counsel of communi ty leaders for mobilising communi ty support .

Notes

a Professor of Business Environment, College of Business Administration, Florida International University, University Park, Miami, Florida 33199 (Phone: (305) 667-6174 or 348-3314; Fax: (305) 348-3792 or 666-0403).

* This research was supported by a grant from the Aspen Nonprofit Sector Research Fund.

1 Township disturbances of the mid-1970s were rooted in conflict over educational policies, specifically the government decision to require that Afrikaans (the language of the Afrikaners whose National Party had established apartheid) be taught in black schools. Secondary schools had not been established in Soweto or the other urban townships because the official policy was that the millions of blacks residing in these areas were only there as temporary workers, and would eventually move back to the tribal homelands to where their citizenship had been transferred. Thus, the government did not provide the townships with electricity or with institutions to permit normal community and family life for blacks. The education projects supported by these donors were intended on the one hand to upgrade black education, and on the other hand to challenge the government philosophy on which apartheid was based.

2 The 'Sullivan Principles' were introduced in March 1977, with twelve original endorsers among US companies. The original principles called for these measures: �9 non-segregation of the races in all eating, rest room and work facilities; �9 equal and fair employment practices for all employees; �9 equal pay for all employees doing equal or comparable work for the


same period of time; �9 initiation and development of training programmes to prepare, in

substantial numbers, blacks and other non-whites for supervisory, administrative, clerical and technical jobs;

�9 increasing the number of blacks and other non-whites in management and supervisory positions; and

�9 improving the quality of employees' lives outside the work environment in such areas as housing, transportation, school, recreation and health facilities.

3 University exemption indicates the mark required for acceptance into university.

4 We cannot be too rigid about this categorisation, since some US companies donated money to the Urban Foundation. However, this organisation was begun by and control rested with South Africans.

5 This effort, Promat, had begun as a private initiative by a teacher at an elite preparatory school for white youth who had started a voluntary tutoring programme to help upgrade the skills of black teachers, illegally, at his home in Pretoria. The organisation, which has now attracted widespread support from a variety of international donors, conducts projects ranging from a teachers' college to one-year courses aimed at helping black teachers upgrade their skills to a number of private secondary schools for black youth.

References

Anheier, Helmut K. (1987) Indigenous voluntary associations, nonprofits, and development in Africa, in Walter W. Powell (ed.) The Nonprofit Sector: A Research Handbook, Yale University Press, New Haven, Connecticut.

Beatty, David and Harari, Oren (1987) Divestment and disinvestment from South Africa: a reappraisal, California Management Review, 29, 31-50.

Hayes, J.P. (1987) Economic Effects of Sanctions on Southern Africa, Trade Policy Research Centre, London.

Lipton, Merle (1988) Sanctions and South Africa: The Dynamics of Economic Isolation, The Economist Intelligence Unit Ltd, London.

Sandberg, Eve (ed.) (1994) The Changing Politics of Non-Governmental Organiz- ations and African States, Praeger, Westport, Connecticut.

Steyn, Jan (1987) Interview reported in Urban Foundation, Leadership South Africa, Cape Town, 18-22.

Teachers' Centre - - Tutorial for Teachers (1985) Funda Forum, 1, 4, p.11. Useem, Michael (1987) Corporate philanthropy, in Walter W. Powell (ed.) The

Nonprofit Sector: A Research Handbook, Yale University Press, New Haven, Connecticut.

Documents

Corporate philanthropy in South Africa: lessons for local development initiatives