Shared Value

Creating shared value through sustainable initiatives to make lives better

The Fund remains committed to being a responsible corporate citizen through routine Corporate Social Investment (CSI) activities whilst directing its focus to develop more sustainable solutions that positively impact its members, stakeholders, and society to secure lasting long-term success.

Delivering on our purpose by creating lasting value for business and society

In the Now You Can Universe, we reinforce our commitment to making lives better by continuing to engage in initiatives and programmes that create sustained value for our members, stakeholders, and society to secure our long-term success. The Fund, through its Corporate Social Investment (CSI), undertakes initiatives that provide positive social, environmental, and economic value to society.

Whereas the CSI initiatives demonstrate our commitment to being responsible corporate citizens, the value derived from them is not easily trackable over time.

The Fund, therefore, seeks to engage in more sustainable initiatives and solutions to create lasting value for its members, stakeholders, and society beyond CSI.

The major initiatives and programmes being undertaken are as follows:

The Financial Literacy Programme

This programme commenced in 2019 on the back of a 2018 internal survey which revealed that 80% of NSSF beneficiaries deplete their entire savings after only 2 years.

The programme is aimed at empowering members and sections of the public with financial and investment knowledge to enable them to make informed and better financial decisions.

Hi-Innovator programme

This is an initiative aimed at supporting youth, small, and medium-sized businesses to sustainably grow through entrepreneurship education, funding, and technical support. The Fund is undertaking this initiative in partnership with the Master Card Foundation. A USD 10 million five-year funding was created to provide seed capital to qualifying entrepreneurs.

The intention is to fund 100 start-ups for the next 5 years. This will not only increase the Fund’s membership base but also contribute to economic growth through widening the tax base, creating employment opportunities and in turn making lives better.

Internal Innovation initiatives and programmes

The Fund’s strategy, a people-driven innovation culture, is the most effective way of securing high employee engagement.

The Fund drives innovation at three levels:

Sustaining Innovation
The idea is to continuously optimise the core business to become leaner, more cost-effective, and overall, more efficient. This is driven principally by the Heads of Departments and the general operational needs of the business.

Product Innovation
Focuses on customer experiences and benefits that address risks in the life cycle of the members.

Business Model Innovation
Focuses on addressing new markets that the Fund previously did not serve and particularly addresses how the Fund will scale voluntary contributions but also boost mandatory contributions.

The internal innovation portfolio is starting to gain traction with some products already active in the market, while some remain at a proto-type or concept development stage as indicated below:

Yollo-Save

This is a savings product centred around peoples’ spending behaviour. The solution enables one to save as they spend. This was originally presented as a digital wallet to enable members to save as they spend in retail outlets. The current orientation is to merge this concept with the Smart Card.

Agro-Desk

This is an idea for a marketplace that connects groups of farmers to markets while guaranteeing them quality inputs and fair prices. The platform is intended to automatically deduct a saving to a retirement scheme for the farmers every time one makes a purchase. This concept is undergoing feasibility testing.

Black Swan and Trail Blazers

Trail Blazers - This is a customised growth mindset coaching programme to drive members towards purpose, resilience and ultimately sustainable saving and investment habits.

Black Swan - This is a digital marketplace for informal sector workers to access customers. Payments on the platform automatically deduct savings for short, medium, and long-term needs.

These two ideas have been merged into one concept to deliver unique and customised financial literacy coaching to informal sector workers while providing digital and physical platforms to connect them to customers, financial services, and markets.

Shared value from internally generated capacity

The Fund has over time created incredible internal capacity evidenced by the sustained remarkable performance and it has exported this success to society, companies, and the spaces that its professionals occupy.

The key contributions to highlight here are:

The Fund has set itself apart as a model for continuous improvement in terms of business processes and technology adoption across the board. It is often a subject for benchmarking and has opened its doors to entities that are keen on replicating some of the efficiencies it has achieved. Additionally, the Fund is open to sharing and supporting external entities to attain the same success. In the past, this has occurred in areas of data science, process automation, and financial reporting, among others.
The contributions made to professional societies, especially the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) Society where Fund professionals have been instrumental in tutoring and mentoring future investment professionals.