Last week, during a private CSI Indaba Build-Up Session, clinical psychologist and organisational development specialist Nomfundo Mogapi shared a metaphor that has remained with me ever since. Using the image of a tree, she argued that Corporate Social Investment has become exceptionally good at funding what is visible. We fund the tree trunk, the branches and the leaves. These are the programmes, projects, outputs, targets, reports and beneficiary numbers that dominate annual CSI reports and sustainability presentations. Yet beneath every healthy tree lies something equally important: the roots and the soil.
The roots represent trust, dignity, leadership, relationships, belonging and social cohesion. The soil represents the environment in which communities live and programmes operate — conditions shaped by inequality, exclusion, unemployment, historical trauma and social fragmentation. Mogapi described these as the “software” of development, while projects, funding and infrastructure represent the “hardware”. Her challenge was simple but profound: what happens when we continue funding the hardware while neglecting the software?
As South Africa once again grapples with xenophobic tensions, growing frustration around immigration and troubling scenes of communities turning against one another, her question feels more relevant than ever. Perhaps the issue is not simply why Corporate Social Investment appears largely absent from this conversation. Perhaps the more important question is whether moments like these reveal something about the depth of CSI’s impact on the communities it has spent the last three decades trying to strengthen.
For more than 30 years, Corporate Social Investment has positioned itself as one of South Africa’s most important mechanisms for social development. Billions of rand have been invested into education, youth development, food security, entrepreneurship, health and community upliftment. Thousands of projects have been implemented and millions of lives have been touched. Yet when social tensions emerge and communities begin to fracture, the sector often finds itself with very little to say.
This is not to suggest that every CSI practitioner should issue statements on immigration policy, nor is it to suggest that xenophobia falls solely within the responsibility of the social investment sector. The question is far deeper than that. If CSI has genuinely strengthened communities, built resilience and contributed to social cohesion, should we not see evidence of that strength during periods of social stress?
After all, the true measure of community development is not how communities function when conditions are favourable. The true measure is how they respond when pressure arrives. It is how communities behave when unemployment rises, when resources become scarce, when frustration grows, when uncertainty takes hold and when people begin searching for someone to blame. It is during these moments that the health of a community is truly tested. Perhaps this is where the current conversation around xenophobia intersects with a much larger conversation about inequality.
As we all know by now, South Africa remains one of the most unequal societies in the world. Yet despite decades of investment, inequality is still frequently approached as though it were primarily a poverty problem. It is not. Inequality is about opportunity, access, belonging, dignity and power. It is about who participates in the economy and who remains excluded from it. It is about who has access to quality education, functioning infrastructure, meaningful employment, social networks and pathways to prosperity. Most importantly, inequality is about relationships. It is about the quality of relationships between citizens, communities, institutions and opportunities. When those relationships begin to break down, inequality becomes visible in new and often uncomfortable ways.
Xenophobia is one of those manifestations. It emerges when economically vulnerable people begin competing with other economically vulnerable people for limited opportunities. It emerges when communities feel abandoned and disconnected from opportunity. It emerges when frustration seeks a target and when social cohesion weakens under pressure. It emerges when trust erodes and belonging becomes conditional.
This does not excuse xenophobic behaviour. But it does require us to understand it. And if xenophobia is one of the symptoms of inequality, then surely it deserves greater attention from a sector whose purpose is to address social development and help build stronger communities.
Perhaps what these tensions reveal is that CSI has become exceptionally effective at funding interventions but less effective at understanding systems. We count the number of bursaries awarded. We measure the number of young people trained. We track the number of meals distributed. We report on outputs and outcomes. But do we measure trust? Do we measure belonging? Do we measure social cohesion? Do we understand whether our interventions are strengthening the social fabric of communities or simply alleviating immediate needs?
These are uncomfortable questions because they challenge one of the sector’s most enduring assumptions — that development automatically produces stronger communities. The reality may be more complicated. A community can receive investment and still remain fragmented. A community can receive services and still feel excluded. A community can benefit from programmes and still become vulnerable to division when economic pressures intensify.
If this is true, then South Africa’s xenophobic tensions should serve as a moment of reflection for the entire CSI sector. Not because CSI caused these challenges, but because they expose the limitations of how impact has often been defined. Perhaps the future of Corporate Social Investment requires a broader understanding of success. Perhaps success is not only measured by the number of beneficiaries reached. Perhaps it is also measured by the strength of relationships, the resilience of communities and the ability of people to navigate difference without conflict.
In many ways, this brings us back to Nomfundo Mogapi’s tree. For decades, CSI has invested heavily in the trunk, the branches and the leaves. Yet moments like these force us to ask whether enough attention has been paid to the roots and the soil. Because when communities fracture, when fear overtakes solidarity and when vulnerable people turn against one another, we are witnessing more than a policy failure or an economic failure. We may be witnessing the moment when the roots are tested. And perhaps the silence of CSI amidst South Africa’s xenophobic tensions tells us less about what the sector thinks and more about what it has — or has not — succeeded in building. And that should concern us all. Because if Corporate Social Investment is ultimately about building stronger communities, then moments like these are not peripheral to its mission. They are the test of whether that mission is succeeding.
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