Ending showy virtue signalling

Our agency hosted a webinar for our clients with FURTHER, a company that supports social entrepreneurs in growing themselves and their businesses – by equipping them with critical skills and coaching, supporting their mental well-being and providing access to networks.

In the webinar were Ian Calvert, Founder of FURTHER, and two entrepreneurs who are part of its ecosystem: Murendeni Mafumo, Founder of Kusini Water; and Renshia Manuel, Founder and MD of GrowBox (a wholesale nursery). As I listened to their stories, what quickly became apparent was that we have a lot to learn.

For starters…

1. We have no clue what it means to be resilient. Renshia’s business grew out of hunger. As an unemployed single mom, she was out of options when she started growing vegetables in her backyard in Hanover Park on the Cape Flats. Neighbours who didn’t have gardens of their own started asking if they could buy her produce. And out of that, GrowBox nursery was born. There’s a learnt helplessness that comes with working for a successful business. We’ve been taught that things should work a certain way and when that way fails, we can’t see another. This was all too clear during the pandemic – we saw big brands collapsing, retrenching, floundering. Because, regardless of business degrees and all, you don’t really know how to struggle and make it through to the other side until you’ve done it. Instead of looking to ‘support’ small business owners, we would do well to approach them as equal partners who can teach us lessons that we may not even have realised we needed to learn.
2. Big business has no business trying to solve community problems. At least not on its own. One sweltering day in 2016, Murendeni was sitting outside his family home in Venda, watching a small boy push a wheelbarrow loaded with heavy water cannisters up a hill. It occurred to him that as a child that had been his job. A qualified engineer, working in water and sanitation and now living in Johannesburg, Murendeni had forgotten this world where water didn’t flow from taps, but had to be fetched by small boys with wheelbarrows. In that moment, he decided to leave his job and start a business that would provide a sustainable water supply to water-scarce rural areas. Kusini Water was thereby founded, conceptualised and implemented by someone who understands the needs, limitations, opportunities and mindset of the community. When we look for help, be it through corporate social initiatives or for some other reason, we need to stop asking ourselves, what solution can I provide for this problem? And rather ask, who, within this community, is already working to solve this problem and how I can I support them in their efforts?
3. Hand-outs are not always helpful. Asked what they needed for their businesses and what they’d received that was most helpful, Renshia and Murendeni didn’t give the answers you’d expect. Money didn’t feature, for one. Rather, it was things like access to psychological counselling, legal assistance and accounting services. You don’t get to that point in cheque handover or a two-week intensive. It takes time to get to know people and learn their needs. Something that struck me about how FURTHER operates is that it creates meaningful, ongoing relationships with entrepreneurs. And it’s this long-term commitment that makes all the difference. If we want to move away from showy virtue signalling and instead make a real, meaningful impact on the world, we need to change from a charitable mindset to one of partnerships. We need to be humble and realise that we have more to learn than we have to give. And we need to shut up and listen.