LIFE is made richer by the number of choices you have. It is frustrating, even somewhat disempowering, when after making the decision to spend your money on something, to have limited options available.

Encouraged to spend a percentage of net profit after tax (2% according to the draft codes) on social investment and enterprise development, qualifying small enterprises have money to contribute.

According to the codes of conduct, enterprises contributing this amount can earn up to 20 points on the residual (social investment) scorecard and 20 points on the enterprise development scorecard.

It is relatively “easy” to spend this sort of money, as it often results in a warm, fuzzy feeling that comes from contributing towards capacity building, community development and transformation.

But it is not about picking some enterprise “off the street” to be charitable to. In fact, it is not about charity at all. It is about interventions that will create the kind of sustainable economic change that is the driving focus of empowerment.

Besides the challenge of finding qualifying empowerment partners, there are issues such as due diligence, performance monitoring, accountability, effect and return on investment. Unless this is your speciality, it can appear quite complicated and time consuming to tackle.

Enterprises’ spend is often considered too “small” to justify engaging a specialist. So, once again, they are stuck before even leaving the starting blocks.

Thankfully, there are options. Catering to the social investment arena, nonprofit organisations have set up websites with searchable databases listing a few hundred such entities.

Businesses that already have an idea of how and what they would like to support can go online and search for an organisation that fits their specifications.

There are however, two obvious pitfalls in this. The first is that it requires the browser to have a knowledge base of empowerment codes relating to residual element, to ensure that the supported interventions meet the criteria and that the related verification requirements are met.

The second is that the websites fall short in “managing your social investment”, leaving questions such as due diligence and transparency unanswered.

Unfortunately, no database exists listing empowerment qualifying enterprises for enterprise development contributions. However, it will not be long before a few exist.

A second option that could meet either residual or enterprise development contribution needs, is that of a managed portfolio fund.

The concept of a managed social investment or enterprise development portfolio fund is almost an unexplored area in SA, but this could be the ideal vehicle through which enterprises can not only contribute beneficiaries and qualify for empowerment points, but also have peace of mind that due diligence, transparency and meeting empowerment reporting requirements are being managed.

Marr is director of Social Advantage, a BEE consultancy focusing on enterprise development and corporate social investment. This is the first of a three-part series focusing on these areas.