I often say I am one of the luckiest people alive to be doing the work I do. And I don’t say that lightly. I say it because I have the privilege of being deeply embedded in a space that holds so much potential—and yet, so many unanswered questions.
I once turned down what could have been a life-changing offer from a leading television network in South Africa. They called me twice, insisting that the country needed my voice and offering a salary package hovering around in the millions. But I said no. Not because I didn’t find it appealing, but because I was in the thick of growing my own business—watching it develop, evolve, and teach me lessons I could never learn in a boardroom.
A Korean film I watched recently resonated deeply with me. A character tells his son, “You can’t walk this path with me. On this road, I lose those I care about. I make unimaginable sacrifices. And it’s a journey for the few.” That stayed with me. It described exactly what it feels like doing the work I do—pushing forward with little recognition, no emails saying, “How are you? Let’s collaborate.” Just quiet persistence.
Last year, we featured Dr Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka on the cover of our magazine. That collaboration has evolved into something much deeper. In one of our early meetings, she said something that shook me: “The South African corporate sector doesn’t want to work with me.”
Let that sink in. A former Deputy President. A global icon who led UN Women. A person who embodies every value the CSI sector claims to champion. And yet, she is ignored by the very institutions that should be falling over themselves to partner with her.
Recently, I met with another Local Foundation. We featured them years ago and were now following up. Their annual funding is around R50 million, mostly from international donors rather than South Africa.
Again, I was stunned.
Why is it that South African corporates seem hesitant—or outright unwilling—to back homegrown efforts led by our most globally trusted names?
I’m currently part of a global research study led by a PhD candidate from RMIT University Melbourne Australia, comparing CSI landscapes in South Africa, India, and Malaysia. South Africa, interestingly, comes out ahead in many respects. But the most powerful question the professor asked during our discussions was: “Who is CSI really for?”
That question has haunted me.
Is our CSI industry genuinely reaching the people it’s meant to? Or have we constructed a closed loop of recycled funding, where the same organisations are funded year after year—irrespective of actual impact or community need?
I revisited a conference we hosted years ago, where Noluthando Mvabaza, CSI Head from the Road Accident Fund made an unforgettable statement: “We say we’re in development, but we don’t want to develop anyone. We only fund those who are already developed.”
That, right there, is the problem.
We need layers within the CSI ecosystem—those at the grassroots, those on the rise, and those who are established. But the system currently seems to reward visibility over value, compliance over courage, and PR over purpose.
When someone like Trevor Noah donates R30 million of his own money—earned overseas—to fund South African education, we need to ask: where are the South African corporates? Our reluctance to fund innovation, to nurture the unknown, to bet on people with vision but not yet profile—is precisely why we remain the most unequal country in the world.
And yes, we attend the same CSI conferences, give the same presentations, issue the same reports, and leave unchanged. The formula hasn’t shifted in three decades, yet we act surprised when the country doesn’t either.
The problem with “mandates” so many corporates cite is that they are written in cement. Unbending. They exclude rather than Include. I recently pitched a project to a CSI lead—an innovative programme targeting under-served areas. Her response? “It doesn’t align with our mandate.”
But perhaps the bigger problem is that these mandates haven’t worked. If they had, we wouldn’t be sitting atop the global rankings for inequality. There is a saying: Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is madness. It’s time to wake up.
We are witnessing a global leadership transition—TD Jakes stepping down, Warren Buffett retiring, Bill Gates preparing to give away his fortune. The world is shifting. South Africa’s CSI sector must do the same.
I’ll close with the haunting words of Nokia’s CEO at the time of their sale to Microsoft: “We did nothing wrong, yet we still lost.”
That’s the danger we face now. If we don’t reimagine, restructure, and rehumanise CSI in South Africa, we will continue to “do nothing wrong”—and still fail the very people we claim to serve.
South Africa’s CSI Sector: Doing Everything Right—And Still Getting It Wrong?
As someone working closely with communities, I’ve come to believe that Corporate Social Investment (CSI), in its current form, is not for us. It was never designed with us at the centre—we’ve become the beneficiaries of frameworks that were never built with our lived realities, resilience, and innovation in mind.
The truth is, you cannot “mandate” care. You cannot “report” your way into healing communities.
We need to go back to Ubuntu—to investing in each other, for each other. Before the concept of CSI ever existed, communities thrived through interdependence. We looked out for one another, built with what we had, and created networks of care rooted in humanity, not strategy.
What we need now isn’t more compliance. We need commitment—from inside our communities outward. Let’s move away from the idea that help will come from the top. Instead, let’s resource the people on the ground, who live the problems and the solutions daily.
Because unless we re-centre our values and re-humanise our approach, we will keep “doing nothing wrong”—and still fail.