In 2023, the Giving for Change Community of Practice achieved a significant milestone by successfully engaging Ghanaian private sector businesses for the first time. This accomplishment was made possible through the dedicated efforts of our partner, Penplusbytes, a civic-tech non-profit organization committed to promoting effective governance and citizen participation through Information and Communication Technology (ICTs). In this case study, we reflect on our experiences in fostering partnerships with private sector businesses to address community challenges and drive impactful change.
Accessing private sector businesses as civil society organizations has never been easy. On many occasions that we have reached out to them, either they did not respond, or where they did, may not show interest in following up on commitments. In 2023, STAR-Ghana Foundation’s partner, Penplusbytes broke through this barrier. As part of supporting local philanthropy initiatives of the CoPs, the 2023 partnership with Penplusbytes focused on promoting visibility of initiatives of CoP members. A pitching event to private sector businesses was conceptualized to one, promote interaction between the Community Based Organisations (CBOs) and businesses, and two, to mobilize corporate social responsibilities for targeted communities. The pitching event was organized on Thursday 23rd November 2023. At this attempt, five influential private sector businesses attended the pitching event. These included Vodafone Ghana Foundation, Ghana National Gas Company, Margins Group, Ghana National Petroleum Corporation, National Lottery Authority and Pentecost Social Services.
These organizations were represented by senior officials who were very enthused about the interventions pitched to them by some members of the CoPs. The event allowed COP members to share their planned interventions with private sector attendees who in turn asked questions to assess measurable impact and clarify pertinent issues like cost components and value for money.
Consequently, two of the businesses made commitments. Vodafone Ghana committed to offering internet connectivity to one of the CoP members-Ark Development Organisation’s Kraboa-Coaltar Resource and Empowerment Center. Vodafone is also exploring partnership with another CoP member- International Child Development Programme on a financial digital inclusion project. The second business, Margins Group is also exploring offering technical digital support to another CoP member- Celdar Foundation’s Skills Development Hub intervention.
In addition to this, the pitching event enabled the private sector businesses to explain to the CoP members how to build partnerships around their Corporate Social Responsibilities opportunities.
Context and description of case
In 2021, STAR-Ghana Foundation (www.star-ghana.org) partnered with Penplusbytes to create an indigenous online giving platform, (www.yensomubi.org) to support Ghanaian Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) and Community-Based Organizations (CBOs) to mobilize resources online to support their work and promote community development. In keeping up with the needs of the users of the platform, Penplusbytes decided to put a human face to the online platform due to the low level of trust amongst Ghanaians about online donations especially towards CSOs. Literature has shown that more Ghanaian companies are gravitating towards embracing Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) largely directed towards community- based activities. While corporate institutions control relatively large CSR budgets, their approach to community development in some cases are top-down. CBOs on the other hand live with beneficiaries and appreciate their need better. The Y3n Somu Bi platform was envisaged to combine the financial resources of corporate institutions and the localized contextual knowledge of CBOs and civil society as a whole to revolutionize community development. This rationale gave birth to an initiative called the “Y3n Somu Bi Pitch for Change” event which brought together non-profit organizations spearheading self-help community projects to pitch for support from private companies. The initiative was also geared towards supplementing online publicity efforts by introducing it to partners from the private sector.
The pitching therefore targeted businesses such as Vodafone Ghana, Margins Group, Ghana National Gas Company, Ghana National Petroleum Corporation and the Good Causes Foundation of the National Lottery Authority. CSO partners who participated in the pitching included Community Development Alliance (CDA- Ghana), Ark Development Organisation (ADO), CELDAR Foundation, My Hereafter Ghana, the International Child Development Programme (ICDP) and Resource Link Foundation.
Key reflections
Knowing what the interest of private sector businesses and pitching your intervention is a critical success factor and it requires time investment. For our partner, Penplusbytes, this meant undertaking thorough research. To start with, about 100 private sector businesses were screened to arrive at least 30 to be invited for the pitching event. Additionally, about 10 were visited in-person and only 5 turned up for the event. This also means that to get more than 5 of them to attend, even more work would have to be done by the team. This can prove challenging to civil society organization which usually work with small teams on very tight budgets and schedules.
We also found a disjoint between how civil society is implementing community development and that of the private sector in some key sectors like health and education. For example, while CBOs are engaged in brick- and-mortar support, we find that the private sector is shifting from brick and mortar to “soft support” in the forms of training, health screenings and donations linked to their area of work. This means that while a CBO may pitch a health compound, they may not get support from some private sector organizations because they will rather donate medical equipment instead of construct the physical infrastructure needed to house the equipment.
Bureaucracy is another challenge that CSOs will encounter at every stage of working with the private sector. While CSOs are more likely to work on smaller projects with small teams, private companies work in large teams and on several projects. Engagements go through a lot of levels and need several approvals which can be challenging for CSOs to keep up with. The thumb rule is to build RELATIONSHIPS, RELATIONSHIPS AND RELATIONSHIPS. Interestingly, we find that staff of these organizations are more likely to act when on in-person interactions rather than electronic engagements.