ICM Foundation

Our Philosophy

Understanding the importance of giving

As an active investor and asset manager with business interests that span the world, ICM understands the importance of giving back by investing in the community. Based on almost two decades of private philanthropic experience, ICM has identified sustainable, effective and focused education where the biggest impact can be made on individuals and in communities.

ICM supports game-changing innovative entities, which are human centric, scalable and have the potential to become self-sustaining. ICM Foundation invests in predominantly education focused enterprises taking a fresh approach to moving the needle in this sector, adapting expertise gleaned from our experience in the education sector along with lessons learnt in the business world to create access and opportunities for community organisations and social enterprises that we support. We are passionate about helping our partners to thrive by providing both financial and non-financial support through the meaningful and long-term relationships we have established.

Over the last decade, ICM Foundation and their stakeholders have granted US$17.6 million to community and non-government organisations (NGO's), and ICM Foundation remains committed in its goal of being a mechanism for improving community wellbeing and assisting self-sufficient sustainability. The NGO’s and partners we support through our eco-system deliver projects that assist individuals and communities to care for themselves through entrepreneurial enterprises, including micro financing and micro franchising. In all instances the initiatives we support work closely with the individual in each system or community.

ICM Foundation supports selective education projects and models undertaken by social entrepreneurs, including:

• Teach a Man to Fish (TAMTF) - we are a corporate sponsor of their School Enterprise Challenge. This is a global entrepreneurial, self-sufficient school model where primary and secondary school pupils are inspired to develop profitable enterprises by implementing their own business plans, along with illustrating entrepreneurial opportunities to those involved. In addition to this is their Early Years Enterprise Challenge (EYEC). EYEC is crafted as a fun learning initiative directed at 3-6 year olds in South Africa, with the intention of providing an experiential understanding of entrepreneurship as well as the importance of our relationship with the natural environment.
• Food Ladder - provides people the tools to stop hunger and malnourishment, and it will continue its rollout and expansion in Indigenous populated Australia, throughout India, as well as priority countries in the developing world.
• The Greenlight Movement - a South African based entity that leads a movement of over 140 regional NGO's to help people progress out of poverty by empowering them to understand and map their own choices. The Greenlight Movement is expanding into countries across Africa.
• The Harlequins Foundation - provides solutions to address inequality, poor health and challenges that face the most vulnerable in society using education, skills development and entrepreneurship. 
• London Pulse Netball Team - our sponsorship of the team began for the 2024 season. Helping to develop and promote sports is important to us, as we see the valuable life skills that sport provides to young people as part of their education journey.
• GROW ECD - we initiated a three-year phased funding period in 2019 to support increased access to quality early childhood development education, impacting low income communities in South Africa. 

As part of our journey, ICM seeks to broaden its philanthropic efforts and to galvanise partnerships and engagement in this realm, especially from within the business sector. Finding strong partners should magnify these exciting projects and partner models.

ICM Foundation supports selected individual projects with funding from ICM and through staff office fund raising initiatives. Over the years some of our initiatives have helped to support: the Harlequins rugby team's Special Educational Needs and Disability Rugby Festival; The Cova Project, an Australian based entity that offers menstrual cups to African women; the Family Literacy Project which is committed to improving the early learning and literacy skills of pre-school children in South Africa; the iThemba Lama Mpumuza Community Centre Project; and, the Asifunde Sonke (Let us learn together) Early Childhood Development Training Centre based in the Drakensberg in South Africa. This short video showed the impact ICM Foundation made at Asifunde Sonke.