Free financial literacy portal shares learnings and lessons

CSI consultancy Trialogue and the MMI Foundation have partnered to share free financial literacy information on the Trialogue Knowledge Hub.

To solve this problem, leading corporate social investment (CSI) consultancy Trialogue has set up an online portal known as the Trialogue Knowledge Hub. It offers free examples of best-practice projects, case studies, research and much more so that companies can start or improve their own projects and programmes. The Hub is also a handy resource for academics, philanthropists and journalists.

Trialogue’s partner in the financial literacy sector of this project is the MMI Foundation ‒ the CSI arm of MMI Holdings, which includes financial brands such as Metropolitan, Momentum, Multiply and Guardrisk. Professor Bernadine de Clercq, head of Personal Finance Research at UNISA, has partnered in much of the research.

Charlene Lackay, MMI Holdings’ CSI Manager, said the group had invested R12.6 million in consumer financial education in 2016 alone.

“We’ve developed numerous successful CSI financial literacy programmes over the years. Two examples are a financial management course to empower early childhood development practitioners, and a board game for high school learners.

“We want to share our knowledge with others so that they can invest their resources optimally to build the financial resilience of individuals, households and businesses.”

Trialogue MD Nick Rockey said that in 2015/2016 the top 100 companies (by CSI spend) invested R5.8 billion, with 15 companies accounting for 57% of that.

“Businesses can play a pivotal role in helping the country to realise its development goals. Corporates sharing their practical, adaptable and relevant learnings ‒ and smaller businesses and individuals learning from them and starting up their own projects ‒ is one way to do so.”

Rockey said that Trialogue’s goal is to have corporates funding a topics across 12 development sectors on the Knowledge Hub. To date it has four supporters: the MMI Foundation; Old Mutual, with information on school leadership and management; Nedbank Private Wealth is sharing its expertise on philanthropy; and Investec has unpacked maths and science education.

“The Knowledge Hub enables leading companies to build on their investments and influence the development sector more broadly. They can help others who also want to make a difference, but need easily accessible research and advice on how best to leverage their funding.”

To access the free Trialogue Knowledge Hub financial literacy site, see www.trialogueknowledgehub.co.za/index.php/topics/financial-literacy.

Contact: Companies interested in sponsoring a new topic or contributing learnings to and insights on existing topics should contact Ruendree Govinder at az.oc.eugolairt@rednivogr.