Businessman Gives Major Shareholding of Company to Help Others

Francois van Niekerk of the Mertech Group has just received the 2010 Inyathelo Special Recognition Award for Philanthropy, for allocating 70% of the shares in his company, to the totally independent Mergon Foundation which he established.  Through this share allocation, van Niekerk has been able to raise some R30-million per annum to support social investment programmes in South Africa, Swaziland, Namibia and the United Kingdom.

His commitment to improving the lives of others for the past 31 years has earned Francois this prestigious Award, which acknowledges, celebrates and profiles South African philanthropists, to encourage and inspire South Africans at all economic levels to give and contribute what they can.

When van Niekerk left the corporate world to start his own business in 1979 without capital, he found himself part of a “statistic” nine months later when the business became insolvent.  He turned to prayer and found that within hours his luck had changed.

"When I prayed, I offered the Lord 30% of a bankrupt company, which in hindsight is somewhat embarrassing,” says van Niekerk. “But, within hours things changed and the consequent success of the company made me realise that I needed to increase the amount promised.

“I then established the Mergon Foundation and increased the trust ownership to 70% of my original shareholding.  Expansion brought new shareholders on board and with the resultant dilution, the Foundation is currently a 52 percent shareholder in the business, with the Foundation shares valued at R1.2-billion as at 30 June, 2010.

“Current proceeds of this shareholding provided R28 million this past fiscal year to be allocated for projects and we have a definite plan in place to increase this to R250-million per year in the next eight years.

•  “We began funding projects directly ourselves, but the high volume resulted in us now supporting only specialised community organisations with an established record of effectiveness.  At present 53 such institutions are supported who, in turn, administer an estimated 500 projects such as:
  
• 
  
• Support of a substantial number of education programs, eg training teachers and providing infrastructure, food and clothing to equip 4000 pre-primary school children from informal settlements around Windhoek with basic English language skills prior to them entering school.
• Support of community care initiatives, eg the Oasis Clinic in Pretoria providing healthy meals, food parcels, skills development training and income-generation activities to 35,000 HIV/AIDS patients on a monthly basis and thus restoring dignity and self-sufficiency.
• Supporting an enterprise development scheme for communities living in poverty near Lanseria. Recycling principles are used to develop organic food orchards and earthworm farming, encouraging self-sufficiency, community upliftment and environmental sustainability.

Says van Niekerk: “Our focus, when selecting organisations for funding, is on the leadership of the organisation and the impact they are having. We evaluate their sustainability and what they do from year to year. 

“We run the Foundation like a business in terms of giving more to the more successful organisations and less to the lesser successful and we assist them with business principles and practice”. 

The success of the Foundation is in its approach of involving all aspects of society - the involvement of non-profit organisations, government, local municipalities and businesses in supporting projects is essential.   Van Niekerk believes that private-government partnerships are crucial in our environment for the success of the country. 

He also feels that it’s important for businesses not to ‘go with the flow’ but to face the daunting challenges of our country and society head-on, and for the government to re-discover a national objective to motivate the people of South Africa to work together to build this nation.  

“One of my favourite quotes is from Winston Churchill who said ‘you make a living by what you get and a life by what you give’, and that is very close to my own philanthropic philosophy. I have seen that if you feed the stream of life and not your own dam, then the stream of life will increase and you will always have more than you need. Feeding your own dam does not fulfil you.” 

Now in their fourth year, the Inyathelo Philanthropy Awards run on the basis of a public call for nominations, whereby nominees are nominated by their peers and members of the communities in which they work and by the non-profit organisations that they support. Nominations are made for a particular category such as Women in Philanthropy, Youth in Philanthropy, Community Philanthropy and Lifetime Achievement in Philanthropy. 

For more information, go to www.philanthropy.org.za or contact Inyathelo-The South African Institute for Advancement on 021 465 6981.

Issued by Quo Vadis Communications on behalf of Inyathelo-The South African Institute for Advancement

Inyathelo – The South African Institute for Advancement is a world-recognised organisation dedicated to building a sustainable South African civil society.  Its core work is to advance social change by working with key institutions and non-profit organisations to ensure their long-term sustainability. This is done by developing the capacity of civil society to use private investment from such companies to better serve the community, whilst working with organisations to develop their resource mobilisation skills.  The Institute promotes social responsibility, personal philanthropy, voluntarism and self-reliance. 

Media Contact:

Chantal Meugens, Quo Vadis Communications
Cell phone: 083 676 2294
Landline: 011 955 5033/011 487 0026
Email: chantal@quo-vadis.co.za

Inyathelo Contact: 

Adrienne Coetzee
Philanthropy
Landline: 021 465 6981
Email: adrienne@inyathelo.org.za