NCBA Golf Series Impact combines competitive golf with sustainability, community empowerment, and measurable social and environmental outcomes.
Last Saturday, my colleagues and I spent the day at Muthaiga Golf Club for the grand finale of the NCBA Golf Series, an event that brought together golfers from across East Africa. The series came to be five years ago, with a dream to bring together golfers, create a strong community and grow the game. The numbers speak for themselves with the series having grown to a community of 23,330 golfers, demonstrating NCBA’s success in fostering not only the game, but also regional inclusivity. This year’s tournaments attracted an impresssive 3,100 golfers from Kenya across 30 golf clubs, over 550 from Uganda across three clubs and 550 too from Tanzania and Rwanda.
NCBA’s involvement in golf is closely tied to sustainability and I got to have a chat with the Bank’s Group Director for Marketing, Communication, and Citizenship Nelly Wainaina, to disuss the Change The Story initiative, sustainability and the series’ wider impact. Change the Story is NCBA’s sustainability agenda launched in 2023, guided by 15 commitments that are designed to ensure lasting and concrete influence not only on the environment but communities as well.
According to Nelly, Change the Story as far as golf goes focuses on creating measurable outcomes through initiatives that support junior golfers, caddies, amateurs, and professional golfers who are making money from the game. For juniors, other than mastering golf at an early age, they also benefit from structured activities that develop their mental and physical fitness while building discipline. Caddies often transition to professiona golfers over time and gain opportunities to earn a livelihood. All this is impact and these are just a few examples.
Once again the numbers speak for themselves, with NCBA Bank having planted over 5,100 trees in connection to golf activities between 2020 and 2025, with tree planting being a part of every tournament. This reinforces the principle that long term sustainability starts now.
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Nelly emphasized that NCBA’s Change the Story efforts align with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, noting that progress remains at 17 percent. The bank is in a long term commitment and plans to plant 10 million trees by 2030, and to raise green financing to SMEs, youth and women led initiatives.
There is no doubt that The NCBA Golf Series and other golf initiatives will continue to grow, with impact going beyond the course. This is so because the bank has demostrated clear long term strategies on how sports can support healthy growth of children, professional development, community empowerment and sustainability.
The NCBA Grand Finale demonstrated that a program carefully aligned with corporate responsibility objectives can provide participants with meaningful experiences, generate measurable community impact, and produce long-term environmental benefits.
The NCBA Golf Series integrates competitive sport with sustainability and community impact. It is designed to deliver measurable outcomes across multiple dimensions, including personal development, professional growth, environmental stewardship, and economic empowerment. By combining recreational engagement with long-term commitments, the series illustrates a model for how institutions can create lasting value beyond traditional corporate activities.
At the grand finale, the combination of competition, community engagement, and sustainability initiatives was evident. Golfers performed under demanding conditions while contributing to a wider mission, showing that sport can serve as a platform for societal change.
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