South African social impact centre, the Bertha Centre for Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business (GSB), has been profiled as one of five university-based social impact centres leading the way in social impact education globally.
A new report by nonprofit organisation Bridgespan Group includes a broad scan of 60+ programmes within business schools and across universities worldwide.
The Bertha Centre was established in and is the only centre in an emerging economy to feature in the report.
Bertha Centre director Dr François Bonnici says there has been rapid growth in social impact initiatives at business schools within the last decade.
“The report points out that ten years ago, merely establishing such a centre was a distinctive act of leadership. But now, it’s viewed as table stakes. Today, almost 50% of the top 50 business schools in the world host a social impact programme, initiative, or centre,” he says.
The GSB is benchmarked alongside the Center for the Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business; the Social Enterprise Initiative at Harvard Business School; the Center for Social Innovation at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business, and the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship at the University of Oxford’s Saïd Business School.
“We are the first academic centre of its kind in Africa, and our centre was established in partnership with the Bertha Foundation, a family foundation that works with inspiring leaders who are catalysts for social and economic change and human rights,” says Bonnici.
The centre’s goal is to achieve social justice and impact through teaching, research, events and actionable projects.
The centre has received significant support from more established centres and has been able to learn from them.
Bertha Foundation COO Laura Horwitz highlights that her foundation believes in the power of people organising to shift systems.
