The De Beers Fund, established in July 1998, is the dedicated instrument through which De Beers Consolidated Mines directs its social investment spending in South Africa.
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Support by De Beers in the wider community for educational and welfare initiatives dates back to the company’s earliest days. These efforts were formalised in the mid-1970s when De Beers participated in the launch of the Anglo American and De Beers Chairman's Fund.
For the next 25 years, the Chairman's Fund drew on the pooled contributions of the country's largest companies to make a significant impact in practically every field of development and community upliftment.
Following the wider separation of management and operational ties between Anglo American and De Beers at the end of 1997, De Beers went on to form the De Beers Fund in 1998. The Fund therefore builds on a long tradition of good corporate citizenship in community development that dates back to the earliest days of De Beers.
During 2007 the Fund contributed R32.5 million in support of local development projects working to affect change in the areas of education, HIV/AIDS, skills training and job creation, arts and culture, health, welfare, environment and policy and advocacy.
The Fund has made a strategic decision to initiate and support development projects and programmes in its areas of mining operation. While the Fund is proud of this, it continues to recognise the importance of other best practice projects and national initiatives.
As a guide, the Fund seeks to ensure that 70% is invested in direct company-related development work and 30% in other national/best practice projects. In every instance, funding support is only considered after careful assessment of the merits of the individual projects.
The Fund does not respond to need alone, but looks at the qualities and capacities of the people championing social change, in big ways or small, as a critical ingredient for the success of their efforts.
All approaches received by the De Beers Fund are subject to careful review, drawing on the wide practical experience Management of the Fund has on development needs and the success and failure of many different ways of trying to address them.
It is important to note that most often, the value of funding devoted to a project is ‘doubled up’ by the guidance and advice received from close engagement with the Fund.
Over the years, the Fund has come to acknowledge the power of partnership and proactive engagement with all key roleplayers (mining operations, government, civil society, project champions and beneficiary communities). Building relationships with an understanding of the communities in which De Beers operates lies at the heart of the Fund’s work.
The De Beers Fund is independently managed by TSI and has rigorous project selection and management criteria governed by its Board of Trustees. In 2007, it was ranked as the fifth best corporate grant maker in South Africa in Trialogue’s 2007 Corporate Social Investment (CSI) Handbook, based on the perceptions of South African companies and non-profit organisations.
This ranking is partly attributable to the effective and responsible manner in which the Fund and its investments are managed. In 2007, the Fund disbursed US$4.6 million (R32.5 million) through more than 142 different projects in South Africa.