6th Making CSI Matter Conference outcomes

Trialogue extends our thanks to the Making CSI Matter 2013 headline sponsors Absa, Eskom, Transnet Foundation, Standard Bank and Volkswagen SA; headline NPO sponsors AngloGold Ashanti and Liberty, and our media partners BizCommunity and Mail & Guardian for making this diverse learning and networking experience possible. To read more about these companies' CSI programmes here.

Delegates were introduced to a Near Field Communication technology device called Poken to connect and share information with other delegates, as well as to track all the interesting content they missed in other breakaway sessions. An overwhelming 100% response from our delegates rated the use of this device as a very beneficial tool. The Poken device was not the only new thing seen this year but we turned things around with the format of our event as well.

The speakers and workshops incorporated the five themes, developing a rich understanding of the issues among delegates. Opportunities for learning and sharing ideas at Making CSI Matter 2013 included:

• Four invited keynote speakers; Dr Francois Bonnici, on Innovation in social investment, Shelagh Gastrow, CEO Inyathelo, on The civil society landscape, Barrie Bramley, and the rockstar of public speaking Vusi Thembekwayo. We also invited five CSI beneficiaries to share their experiences on the main stage. Watch edited extracts from the talks and performances of our fantastic plenary speakers. Take a look at some of the speakers' slide decks, including Cathy Duff's information-rich presentation of Trialogue's corporate and NPO research.
  
• Five developmental breakaway sessions with focused themes: School-based solutions, holistic community development, project metrics, youth development and supporting enterprises. Listen to the audio recordings of the breakaway sessions. These have been annotated for ease of navigation.
  
• Five Case studies by leading practitioners, with delegates developing guidelines on best practice in each sector.
  
• Seated lunches and an opening-day cocktail function for networking. You can browse our galley here, if you recognise yourself let us know and we'll mention you in the caption!

The video, audio, photographs and slides from the conference are all up on Trialogue's dedicated CSI portal, http://csimatters.co.za/. We hope that you can take the time to be inspired by the sessions presented at the conference, and learn more about the interesting sessions you had to miss.

The guidelines that emerged from the sessions in the breakaways will again be incorporated into the 16th edition of The CSI Handbook, another Trialogue platform for furthering best practice in corporate social investment and development. The CSI Handbook will be released in November 2013.

What Making CSI Matter 2013 delegates are saying:

"Just a quick note to congratulate you on an outstanding conference - you really did put together a top drawer event." - Adri Marais, TsiBA

"A special word of thanks for the amazing conference this week! It empowered me highly."

"Thank you very much for this conference. It was very informative, a good networking opportunity."

"Left totally inspired, with some serious mind- and strategy-altering concepts!"

"Very fresh here-to-stay kind of conference. Not predictable as some previous conferences. I thoroughly enjoyed myself; something that has not happened with a lot of conferences recently."

Making CSI Matter 2014 will be held in May next year. Pencil it into your diary and watch www.csimatters.co.za for updates.

See you at Making CSI Matter 2014!

The Trialogue team