Co-operatives can touch lives through CSR
Harambee Investment Co-operatiive Society Limited Ltd members during their AGM at Harambee Co-operative Plaza in Nairobi.
Cooperative Principle #6—Cooperation among Cooperatives—and #7—Concern for Community—envisage use of cooperatives’ community-level networks to create positive influence among members and the community. They provide an avenue for corporate social responsibility (CSR), more aptly “cooperative” social responsibility, among cooperatives.
CSR signifies a cooperative’s commitment to conducting its operations in line with economic, social, and environmental responsibilities. It brings a cooperatives’ ethical, legal and voluntary obligations owing to members, stakeholders and the broader society to boost public image and reputation. A cooperatives’ focus on social responsibility is not about just meeting social obligations; it’s also about stepping forward for what they stand for.
There are many example of CSR. For instance, at the height of Covid-19, the cooperative movement supported communities and members affected by the pandemic. In line with Cooperative Principle #6, they established the Cooperative Coronavirus Response Committee to spearhead its response. The committee distributed, through cooperative societies, survival “Co-op Kits” to 3,500 household.
6,500 members
Individual cooperatives also tackled Covid-19. For instance, the majority women-owned Lelchego Dairy Cooperative Society, with almost 6,500 members, led a campaign to mitigate the pandemic through health education programmes and by helping to disseminate information from the Ministry of Health and Nandi County Dairy Cooperative Union to their members and the community.
Imarisha Sacco’s in-vitro fertilisation CSR programme is eye-catching. The sacco has a welfare kitty, to which members contribute Sh400 monthly. From it the sacco has supported women with infertility challenges with up to Sh1.2 million to join an IVF programme. To date, more than 45 ‘Imarisha’ children have been born to women who would otherwise not have a child. Imarisha also supports men with erectile dysfunction, as well as cancer patients with up to sh1.8 million for treatment.
Cooperatives should not become socially responsible because it is vogue. Far from it. There are real benefits to reap from CSR activities. First, it enhances member satisfaction and engagement in the cooperative’s initiatives, like tree planting and other environmental conservation activities.
Secondly, CSR initiatives support local and global communities by contributing to, among others, the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It also puts a cooperative into a socially beneficial relationship with local communities, with the potential to prod non-members to join the entity.
Thirdly, it enhances access to investment opportunities with the potential to attract additional resources to expand on activities that positively impact the community. Lastly, it improves the cooperative’s social standing, attracts loyalty and impacts its balance sheet, the overall bottom-line.
Prof. Nyamongo, an anthropologist and Fulbright Scholar, is deputy vice-chancellor at The Cooperative University of Kenya. [email protected]. @Prof_IKNyamongo
