Has South Africa’s CSI Sector Birthed Black Business?

Corporate Social Investment (CSI) in South Africa has, over the past three decades, become an essential pillar of the private sector’s response to the country’s socio-economic challenges. Yet, as South Africa marked 30 years of democracy and reflected on its transformation agenda last year, a critical question must be asked: Has the CSI sector birthed Black business within its own ecosystem?

While CSI funding has long supported Black-led non-profits and community organisations, the emergence of fully-fledged Black-owned businesses specialising in CSI implementation, monitoring, strategy, evaluation and research remains limited. This reality stands in contrast to the intentions of the Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (B-BBEE) Act and the developmental objectives laid out in South Africa’s National Development Plan (NDP) 2030.

At its core, B-BBEE seeks to enable meaningful participation of Black South Africans in the economy. The Codes of Good Practice go further to promote Enterprise and Supplier Development (ESD), skills transfer, and the growth of Black-owned and Black women-owned businesses in supply chains. Ironically, the CSI function within many companies — the very platform tasked with addressing social inequality — often falls short of applying these same principles within its own operations.

Despite an estimated R10 billion annually spent on CSI in South Africa, a disproportionate share of implementation and strategic consulting services continues to be held by historically white advantaged entities. The localisation of spend — especially in rural or township economies — remains low, and few black-owned service providers have been supported to scale, innovate or lead in the CSI space.

This gap presents a missed opportunity not only for empowerment but for creating sustainability and authenticity in CSI work. Local Black entrepreneurs with lived experience of poverty, inequality and unemployment are uniquely positioned to design context-relevant, community-driven solutions — yet many lack the financial runway, networks or mentorship required to break into the formal CSI supply chain.

South Africa’s National Development Plan 2030 outlines an ambitious vision for eliminating poverty and reducing inequality by 2030. Central to this vision is the creation of jobs, development of small and medium enterprises, and strengthening of capacity in underdeveloped sectors of the economy.

The CSI sector can — and must — align its operational approach with the NDP’s commitment to an inclusive and dynamic economy. This requires a shift from charity-based giving models to inclusive development models that prioritise the incubation of Black-owned businesses that work within social impact domains.

There is an urgent need for a policy and procurement framework within CSI offices that rewards transformation across their service delivery ecosystem. Companies should be held accountable for not only who they fund, but who they contract to design, implement, monitor and evaluate their CSI programmes. Such an approach would create pathways for Black professionals — from researchers, evaluators and community development experts to digital storytellers and data scientists — to build enduring social impact businesses.

Government has a role to play by setting clearer guidelines and incentives within its B-BBEE scorecard for transformation in CSI implementation. Too often, B-BBEE contributions are viewed as a tick-box exercise, and CSI departments operate in silos removed from procurement and supply chain transformation strategies.

Meanwhile, corporates must confront their own internal contradictions. Many companies celebrate their social impact investments in glossy reports yet fail to diversify their CSI procurement pipelines. Without intentional, long-term investment in Black service providers, transformation within the CSI sector will remain superficial.

To truly answer the question — has CSI birthed Black business in South Africa? — we must be honest about where progress has been made and where systemic barriers persist. The current state of affairs suggests that while Black non-profits have benefitted, the CSI sector has not yet catalysed a wave of Black business ownership and innovation within its own ranks.

But the potential remains. The road ahead must involve a fundamental redesign of CSI strategies to include supplier development, mentorship, long-term contracting and incubation support for emerging Black CSI practitioners and businesses. Creating an enabling environment for Black-owned CSI firms to flourish is not only a moral and economic imperative; it is aligned with South Africa’s broader goals of inclusive growth and economic justice.

In the spirit of the NDP 2030, the future of CSI in South Africa must be one that empowers — not just through the disbursement of funds but through the deliberate development of a new generation of Black-owned, values-driven, socially conscious enterprises. Only then can we say with conviction that CSI has indeed birthed Black business in South Africa.

I believe that true transformation cannot be limited to who receives CSI funding; it must include who delivers, designs, and evaluates that work. In response to these pressing questions, the upcoming edition of Matter Magazine will shine a spotlight on The Face of Black Business in CSI South Africa. This issue, set for release in May 2025, will unpack the progress, challenges, and missed opportunities within the CSI ecosystem when it comes to Black business development.

The magazine will feature interviews with unrecognised Black entrepreneurs working in the social investment space, data-driven insights into procurement patterns, and bold thought pieces from transformation experts and CSI leaders. It will not only map who is doing the work — but who should be, if the sector is to truly reflect the spirit of empowerment and economic redress.

At the heart of the issue is one fundamental truth: if the CSI sector is to claim a role in building a more inclusive South Africa, it must begin by transforming itself. The private sector cannot invest in economic justice externally while perpetuating exclusion internally. The next frontier of transformation in CSI lies not in what corporates fund — but in who they empower to do the work.