Corporate Social Review Magazine 1st Quarter 2013 | Page 28

Old problems, new reality
In conversation with Marc Lubner
Paul S Rowlston

If there is one thing we can rely on Marc
Lubner to do it’s to challenge our thinking
and force us to look at familiar issues in
unfamiliar ways. In a recent conversation
with Corporate Social Review Marc
addressed something that’s central
to everyone’s thinking right now, the
ongoing issue of funding.
Echoing his father’s words (Ed: Detailed
elsewhere in this very issue) as always,
Marc opened with some strong words.
“The cold hard reality is this. The social
sector is facing a funding challenge. In a
post credit-crunch, post wall-street melt
down, post credit-bubble world, this is a
global issue. But for a country like South
Africa a challenge can become a crisis
really fast.”
So, according to Marc, here are the facts.
• Faced with shrinking profits and slow
markets Private sector spend on
Social issues is way, way down.
• As consumers become more careful
with their own shrinking discretionary
income they also spend less on
non-essentials, which means that
consumers are spending less money
on Lottery tickets and that means less

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Lottery money available to be spent.
• With all the major global economies
facing real financial crisis of their own,
and a growth in their own social needs
as a result of that global slow-down,
less international money is available to
be spent in the developing world as
that money goes to meet real needs
closer to home.
And here’s the real kick in the pants.
The very same forces that are reducing
the amount of money available to be
spent dealing with social issues are the
same forces that ensure that those social
issues are dramatically increasing. More
unemployment, more inflation, more
poverty, more need - with a shrinking
pool of money available to address any
of these issues.
The truth is it’s a perfect storm and the
wind and rain and driving waves are
battering everyone equally with no
organisation - no matter how big, no
matter how experienced, no matter
how efficient - immune from the storm’s
effects.
And, to stay with the theme, the forecast
is not good. Industry projections are that

corporate, government and lottery money
will continue to decline in real terms after
inflation. Fixed cost will continue to rise
and international spend will continue to
fall at, as Marc puts it, alarming rates.
The long and the short of it is a simple
message. The whole indus try will have
to do much more with significantly less.
And, given how great the challenges
already appear, that is an extremely
sobering proposition.
Says Marc: “Everyone is scratching
their heads, everyone is trying to work
out just how to deal with this. It’s a real
issue and it’s happening right now.” Marc
also echoes his father’s words. “There is
no magic bullet here. We can’t just keep
doing what we have always done. If we
want to keep meeting the vast need in our
country then we have to do something
different. My belief is that we don’t need
just one solution to this problem, we need
to do a whole range of new things, and
we have to do them fast.”
So, having painted a fairly grim picture of
the problem, let’s talk solutions:
According to Marc the first solution is as
simple as a single word:

CORPORATE SOCIAL REVIEW
2013/07/29 10:45 AM