What do we do with this money?

That was the question Michael Joseph and other decision-makers at Safaricom were facing about two years into the existence of M-PESA.

The product became more popular than initially anticipated, reaching millions of users faster than expected, and the interest in its bank accounts was growing as exponentially as the product’s popularity with Kenyans.

One of the conditions set by the Central Bank of Kenya to allow M-PESA to operate was that the money M-PESA’s users put into the system be separate from Safaricom’s own funds. Because it was the customers’ money, it made no sense to mix it with the company’s money.

The funds would be held in a bank account at the then Commercial Bank of Africa, under the trusteeship of M-PESA Holdings Limited. Money sitting in a bank account generates interest as the bank lends it out, and one of the other requirements was for the surplus to be invested in Government bonds.

“We thought at the time, in the early days of M-PESA, that the interest would be just sufficient to pay for the bank fees, the audit fees, et cetera, but of course M-PESA became very successful. The amount of interest that was earned overnight grew exponentially. What do we do with this money?” Michael Joseph, the founding CEO of Safaricom, recalled.

As the first of its kind in the world, there were no precedents, and rather than the mind-boggling permutations of how the money would be paid to users, it was agreed with the Central Bank that M-PESA Foundation would be formed to spend the money on charitable projects around Kenya.

“We made it a very big stipulation that it would not be confused with the Safaricom Foundation. These could be projects that are not branding or promoting Safaricom in any way, and they were capital-intensive projects that we would only use that money for capital projects, not for operating funds,” said Michael.

With the billions at their disposal, the M-PESA Foundation embarked on huge capital-intensive projects, helping fence more forests, refurbish schools, embark on health projects and economic empowerment.

One of the key education projects was the M-PESA Foundation Academy in Thika, which was launched when the late Bob Collymore was in charge at Safaricom.

“We started to think: This M-PESA Foundation, how could we better spend this money to provide the future leaders of Kenya? So, we had this idea to form a leadership academy, which is called the M-PESA Foundation Academy, and in that academy, we would create, or try to create, the future leaders of Kenya, like the Tom Mboya programme that was here before,” said Michael.

The M-PESA Foundation Academy recruits two bright but needy students – a boy and a girl – from each of the 47 counties every year and has been operating since 2016.

“When we brought these kids, literally in some cases from the bush, to the Academy, gave them the uniforms, got them to sleep in proper dormitories, put them in that environment, we saw how they flourished and how they just grew as people, in their characters, from just having this education, the facilities, these kids blossomed,” said Michael.

The M-PESA Foundation Academy was an example of how education could transform lives and enable individuals to improve their economic status by working hard in school.

These examples of education as one of the ways destinies are changed and new futures created abound across Kenya.

From his own experience, starting out at Ngai Ndeithia, a primary school in Nyahururu whose name means ‘God help me’, and then to Starehe Boys Centre, Safaricom CEO Dr Peter Ndegwa has become a passionate advocate of improving education.

“Education is the future of this country. We can unleash potential by having the right foundations from an education perspective, and that’s why education is so important for the Safaricom Foundation and the M-PESA Foundation. For me personally, I have benefited massively from a great education, from a humble beginning in rural Kenya to Starehe and beyond,” Peter said.

While the M-PESA Foundation was established in 2010, the Safaricom Foundation had been transforming lives since 2003, when it was formally established. The Safaricom Foundation formalised a tradition that began at Safaricom soon after it was launched in a new form in October 2000.

“When we first started Safaricom, obviously, we didn’t have a foundation. We just did what we called CSR, Corporate Social Responsibility,” Michael recalled. “We funded, sponsored very many things around Kenya in a very informal way. Actually, it was one of the best things we ever did, because we funded many, many things across the country, which got us a lot of visibility. Our brand was noticed, and we had so many projects that people thought Safaricom was everywhere.”

As the two foundations continued to interact with Kenyans and carried out projects across the country, four key areas emerged as the points that always needed interventions: education, economic empowerment, health, and the environment.

The Foundations have had such an impact across Kenya that Bob Collymore wanted to take the idea beyond the country.

“You probably don’t know this but before he died, Bob Collymore was going to work for Vodafone, for the group to take what we had done in Kenya to the whole Vodafone group because we were the leaders and still are the leaders in doing this in the world, a mere corporate changing people’s lives. It’s not lip service. It’s not cutting a big cheque, which is easy to do. It’s really doing something,” said Michael.

Citizens of the Future is an expansion of the work done in the education sector.

“We didn’t just wake up and decide we are going to do Citizens of the Future. We looked at 22 years of Safaricom Foundation building one classroom, building two classrooms. So you’d go to a school, you see our two shiny classrooms and schools used to make the shiny classrooms the candidates’ classrooms because there is something about the space,” said Karen Basiye, Director Sustainable Business and Social Impact at Safaricom.

With the M-PESA Foundation Academy and the work done across the country, she said, the two foundations have a blueprint and have learnt lessons that can be used to support the education sector better.

“Education is the premise of any society, any development in society, so we strongly believe that if we fix education in Kenya, we have already empowered and transformed everyone’s lives,” said Karen.

The Citizens of the Future Programme is the culmination of decades of support for the education sector by the Safaricom and M-PESA Foundations.

Under the programme, both Foundations will fund the upgrade of 500 schools across the country, scholarships for 10,000 students in senior secondary and tertiary institutions and enhance the training of student teachers at Teacher-Training Colleges over the next five years.

The schools to be upgraded will be identified by the public, who will then be required to make their nominations via citizenofthefuture.org.

For Peter, the focus need not be on how much the foundations plan to spend.

“We will invest as much as is required to upgrade the schools because it also depends on the needs of those schools but if you think about 100 schools every year, that’s 500 schools. That’s a massive investment. That will be at least two schools in every county every year.  In the past five years alone, we have invested KES13 billion on education, health, economic empowerment and environment but here we’ll channel a lot of that focus on education,” he said.

For Michael, who has been around Safaricom for the last 25 years and is now retired, Citizens of the Future means much more.

“This Safaricom initiative is part of what we envisaged right from our very beginning in 2000, which is that we want to change people’s lives. It was our thinking, my thinking and my philosophy, that as individuals, we need to use the gifts that have been given to us to help societies. We can’t all be missionaries or doctors, but as business people, we can use the tools that we have to change people’s lives for the future,” said Michael.