In July 2020, Charlene Lackay, the group corporate social investment (CSI) manager at Momentum Metropolitan Holdings, faced the challenge of developing an effective system to monitor and evaluate the company’s volunteer programme. Increased pressure on funding made it critical to provide clear evidence of what the programme was achieving. Additionally, Lackay recognized that CSI practitioners often became too emotionally invested in their projects, making an objective, detached assessment necessary to properly evaluate their efforts.

However, establishing a proper monitoring and evaluation framework presented significant operational hurdles. Momentum Metropolitan was a massive organization with more than 15,000 employees spread across numerous job levels. Compounding the issue, Lackay had to navigate a lack of resources within the human resource department while strictly respecting employee privacy regarding salary levels.

The case highlights how these volunteer initiatives fit into the broader landscape of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and the legislative environment in South Africa. Operating within the financial services sector, Momentum Metropolitan was obliged to adhere to the Financial Sector Code (FSC) under the Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (B-BBEE) Act. This code features a scorecard measuring contributions to socio-economic development and financial consumer education. Furthermore, as a listed company, they had to comply with the King IV Report on Corporate Governance, which emphasizes that corporate endeavours should ultimately serve humanity.