Patterns of Giving in South Africa 2018

As you can see in our Patterns of Giving infographic, South Africans view their time and skills as the ultimate social investment. Or so say 90% of a sample of over 6 000 South Africans who volunteered through forgood. Unsurprisingly, every day, South Africans give money and goods to people in need. Although these donations are incredibly helpful and meaningful to the Cause, when people want to make a social investment where they can be more involved in the giving process (and it seems the majority do), they volunteer their time in a way that resonates with them. That’s where forgood comes in - time is invested, not wasted. Our data not only reaffirms the need for volunteering programmes in both the public space and inside local businesses, it also provides invaluable feedback as to where and how volunteers like to invest their time - education (24%), community development (19%), women, children and youth (18%) came out tops in terms of interest areas. Gauteng is home to 48% of Causes listed on the platform, followed by 26% based in the Western Cape, and KwaZulu-Natal comes in third at 10%. One in four of the actions on the site are tech related – a sign that technology is disrupting the non-profit sector. Digging deeper into social behaviour data helps us to create more focused and personalised experiences for Volunteers and corporates alike. We don’t do one-size-fits-all. Our platform has more than 1 400 different opportunities and 500 social Causes for people to choose from.

Our numbers don't only come from ordinary South Africans, though...

Since forgood has become the go-to site for ordinary South Africans looking to connect with reputable causes, forgood for Business is the specialist in managing Employee Volunteering Programmes in a way that matches corporate strategy with social impact. A significant portion of those almost 14 000 connections are coming from corporate volunteer programmes! Already, we've signed 13 large South African corporates for a branded employee volunteering platform populated with real-time requests from non-profits. The employees browse for activities and make arrangements directly – but all actions can be tracked for use in CSI reporting. Our data shows that South Africans, and millennials in particular, are eager to get involved in social projects, but they want a more personalised experience. Our volunteer programmes offer this in a way that improves collaboration, innovation and soft skill development. Sustainable volunteering leads to more activated CSI which in turn, leads to more sustainable support for the communities our causes are involved with. So, what do you think of these stats? South Africans are doing pretty well, huh!?

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