The following blog was written by Matilda Sekoakoa (Managing Director at The Experience Factory).

The month of August marked the end of our Social Impact Management Graduate Programme for Sustainable Climate, seeing 6 ambitious and talented young people graduating from only our global first Social Impact Management Graduate Programme.

We commenced with this cohort of long-term unemployed graduates from various rural areas last year September 2020, with the objectives of

1. Strengthening skills in the Agriculture value chain in SA

2. Making farms sustainable and profitable

3. Creating systemic impact within the communities we work with (project website).

We learned back in 2020 by analysing the professionals in the field of social value creation and IMM:

(a) the vast majority is at a senior level; and

(b) the majority is based in Europe, UK or northern America.

Both are problematic, especially from a South African perspective, as the build-up of the available professionals in any industry would be considered with a balance between entry level graduates, juniors and up to seniors and executive level. A specific training trajectory was necessary to address this aspect, as Social Impact Management currently is at best a standard course within a field of study at universities and not a major.

Whereas the majority of development funding from Europe and the US & Canada finds it ways to Africa, the evaluation of the impact of these funds is largely left to specialists from these countries as well. From a Social Impact Management perspective, it would be essential to be have impact informed by those that experience it, and therefore having Social Impact Management specialists that intrinsically understand the plight and circumstances of beneficiary communities would be quintessential.

In the context of South Africa, which was experiencing the highest level of youth unemployment at the time of starting the project (which has been made worse by Covid-19), the question of employability stands out as one of the reasons why many of our young people struggle to secure long-term employment. Our solution goes well beyond addressing these two components, as work readiness is a key component of our training programme to develop a holistic talent with grit, a field that our partner The Experience Factory specializes in. Furthermore, we created an avenue to create jobs.

By completing this programme we have successfully contributed to all these challenges and aspects, although we would have liked for most graduates to be permanently employed upon completion. This is however only going to be a matter of time.

From an Embedding Impact perspective, as one of the implementing partners, we have been approached in the period July 2021 till mid-September 2021 (the date of submission of this report) for and by:

a) Development of a sector wide SIM Graduate Programme for the Renewable Industry

b) Assistance for development of the basic elements for SIM for 15 commercial consumer brands, and how to execute the measurement in due course

c) Addressing the needs of medium-to-large size NGOs that are desperate to understand what Social Impact means and are at a loss on how to measure and manage it

d) At least three impact investment funds that are in need to understand social impact and how to incorporate the measurement into their metrics for evaluating investments (pre-funding and post-funding).

As it stands, we have seen 10 young professionals that have graduated in 2 cohorts. These 10 graduates are really flying the flag up high with the organisations they were placed in for their internships, and for which they are now working: the Environmental Sustainable Agency (ESA) and Property Point (PP), which we will share with you their impressions and experiences throughout the course. Further, our talent finalized reports to employers detailing their future recommendations. The graduates of the programme are currently awaiting their graduation ceremony and have been offered a contract with EI to ease the most pressing pressures in the organization, while one has been offered a permanent position with one of our partners.

You can find more news in the testimonials included via LinkedIn.