About Corporate Social Investment
Not everything is about a company’s profits. It’s also about its heart. CSI provides a platform for companies to wear their heart on their sleeves.
Corporate Social Investment (CSI) is essentially a recognition by a company, its directors and staff, that every person has a wider role to play in society than the one they fulfil from nine to five. It’s about that world outside of the corporate door, a world of which everybody is a part, a world for which we must dig deep and get involved. One way or another.
Take the decimation of our rhino population. Extinction is a very real, albeit unthinkable, possibility. Playing a meaningful part in this extremely complex journey with its innumerable layers, requires everybody to take responsibility. It’s not somebody else’s problem, it’s ours. Nobody else will solve it.
Education and children. That’s where it begins. For any long-term solution to be sustainable, it always begins with education and children. Children who have mostly never seen a rhino, but who have seen poverty, day after day. They live with it.
What’s a rhino to them? They can’t be expected to defend something they haven’t seen, don’t understand, or don’t derive any benefit from, directly or indirectly.
What is CSI?
CSI stands for projects that are outside of the standard business activities of an organisation and are not directly for purposes of increasing a company’s profit. These projects focus strongly on development. CSI projects make use of the company resources to uplift and improve the lives of communities and the environment. They are not primarily driven as marketing initiatives but they do have considerable marketing benefits.
CSIs are not only for large corporates with big CSI budgets, but also for SMEs that are exploring CSI opportunities.
Why Develop a CSI Strategy?
- CSI shows the world the 'heart' of your business and greatly enhances your credibility.
- By having a CSI, you can improve your company’s competitive edge in terms of appealing to and growing your client base and business partners.
- Improve the living conditions of local communities, thereby creating a loyalty to your surroundings.
- Contribute to and support your marketing tools: i.e. brand awareness.
- Align your company with industry charters: SRI (Social Responsibility Index) and GRI (Global Reporting Index).
- Stabilise the economic and social environment.
- Create and develop new business ideas.
- Create new interest and enquiries into about your company’s operations.
- Enhance your organisations corporate image and ultimately your Return on Investment.
Who is Rhino Art?
Rhino Art is arguably the biggest Conservation Education initiative based on two physical visits to a school. The Aim is to teach the learner about rhino and other forms of Conservation by drawing a solution to the Wildlife crisis on an A3 page. Rhino Art is a programme collaborated by the Kingsley Holgate Foundation and Project Rhino with an Aim to reach one million youth worldwide.
When it comes to conservation, education of our children is everything. Without education, we will lose the fight for survival of the rhino.
Conservation through education touches on so muchmore than the animals, including Skills Development, Job Creation, Tourism, Entrepreneurship and so much more. Conservation is a community issue, and until it’s an authentically shared concern, it will falter and fail.
Thanks to our brand Partner Mascor –in October 2018 we addressed the schools in Malelane
"To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Other Events held with Mascor Group:
2018- Sasol Salt Rock Colour Run
2018- Midland Schools – Wartburg
2018- Sponsorship of 150 pairs of Adidas Shoes from Project Rhino, Co-ordinated by Triton and Mascor for Lowveld Walkers- Joseph Mashaba- Insert Adidas brand
Mascor and Project Rhino Synergy in 2017:
- Launch of SASOL SALT Rock and Radio interview on Radio Life and Style
- Launch of Rhino in Malelane and Komatipoort
- Schools education in Lowveld
- Participation at Buffalo Hotel
- Rhino Youth Camp at WESSA Howick
- Duck Derby at Wembley College, Greytown with Mascor
- Rhino Art in 6 Schools in Greytown with CSI and Nosipho Zondi
- Colour run pic- Sasol and Piet last year.
Project Rhino Would like to thank the Following brands:
- Sasol
- Caltex
- Puma
And Wonderful people:
Praveena Thulkanum – Salt Rock
Nosipho Zondi- Greytown
Piet Kotze- GM Malelane and Komatipoort
George Bown- GM Headoffice
Themba Gumbi- Debonairs Malelane
Caltex Mpumalanga-Janitta Pieterse
Tracey Lambooy- Triton Couriers
Jennifer Schaum- Uplands College
Cecil Corringham-Life Form Taxidermy, White River
