I think there should be a question that quietly lingers in many corporate social investment boardrooms, but one that rarely takes centre stage in my opinion: who is CSI really for?
The assumption that CSI is designed for “the marginalised” is often accepted as fact. And on paper, this seems both logical and morally sound. But in a recent conversation with a PhD candidate, a light bulb moment shattered this assumption for me. The real recipients of CSI might not always be who we think they are. In fact, we may have failed to interrogate whether our CSI programmes are reaching those most in need—or whether, instead, they are propping up the resilience of those already halfway up the ladder.
Phase 1: The Comfortably Disadvantaged – The Middle-Class Beneficiaries of CSI
South Africa’s middle class is not monolithic. Within it is a growing cohort of youth and families who are quietly crumbling beneath the weight of financial instability, household trauma, mental health crises, and fractured family systems. These are not children walking barefoot for kilometres to a school without textbooks; they are instead navigating the psychological, emotional and economic toll of families in decay, alcoholism, absent parenting, and chronic unemployment. They have electricity. They have access to a school. But they are deeply at risk.
These are often the students who benefit from structured bursary programmes, mentorship initiatives, tech access programmes, and urban-centric after-school support initiatives. They are recipients of CSI because their schools are better resourced, their caregivers are easier to reach, and their urban settings offer enough data and visibility for corporate reporting. In short, they are the ‘reachable poor’—not the poorest.
But is this failure? Not entirely. It is crucial to support those who sit at the threshold between flourishing and falling back into the margins. Yet, this cannot be our only line of sight. If all we’re doing is helping the almost-there to get there, then we must ask: who remains behind?
Phase 2: The Invisible Majority – Those Yet to See a Glimpse of Development
Now turn your gaze to the children who still walk five kilometres to school. The ones who return home to mud houses without lights, with empty pots and broken windows. They live in deep rural pockets or informal settlements that exist on the fringes of even local government priorities. There are no glossy photos to be taken here. There’s no Wi-Fi to host a virtual launch. There’s no road access for an oversight visit. Here, poverty is not episodic—it is permanent and inherited.
These children are not in the CSI database. Not because they are less deserving, but because they are less visible. Their communities are often not organised enough to receive or manage funding. Their schools don’t have the capacity to submit funding proposals or complete complicated reporting templates. And so, they are left to languish at the very bottom of the development pyramid, while CSI concentrates on the more ‘manageable’ layers.
This invisibility is not just a gap in data; it is a moral failing of our collective imagination. CSI in South Africa has matured into a system that funds only what can be monitored, measured, and marketed. But development—real, systemic, uncomfortable development—often lives outside of that neat frame.
Phase 3: The System Shapers – The Institutions and Professionals Who Are Indirect Recipients
There is a third, often overlooked, tier of CSI beneficiaries: the ecosystem of service providers, implementing partners, researchers, consultants, project managers, M&E specialists, and NGOs who form the backbone of the CSI industry. Without casting judgement, we must name the fact that these players are also recipients of CSI. They are the indirect beneficiaries who draw salaries, build reputations, and sustain operations through CSI spend.
Many are doing vital, mission-aligned work. But we must ask: are we investing more in the infrastructure of giving than in the transformation of the people we claim to serve? When overheads outpace outcomes, and when bureaucratic safety becomes more important than bold experimentation, CSI becomes risk-averse philanthropy, not social justice.
And here’s the rub—if we are too timid to fund the unfundable, to go where the data is missing, or to walk the muddy roads to schools not on Google Maps, we are not doing CSI. We are doing brand-aligned marketing. We are managing risk. We are not changing lives.
So What Do We Do With This?
We must adopt a phased, intentional view of recipients in CSI—and be honest about which window we’re funding.
- Window One: The Almost-There
Invest in them with purpose, but recognise that their climb is shorter. Their outcomes are easier to measure, but their trajectory doesn’t speak for the whole of South Africa. - Window Two: The Never-Seen
These must become the new frontier of CSI. We must re-engineer our programmes to be less afraid of failure and more curious about potential. This requires patient capital, long-term partnerships, and funders willing to get their boots dirty— and I mean literally. - Window Three: The System That Delivers
We must fund our ecosystem but also demand clarity: is our NGO class growing or solving? Are our consultants building capacity or recycling plans? Are we training a development class or enabling dependency?
A New Question for the Industry
The next time you sit in a CSI planning session or review a strategy document, ask not what are we funding? Ask instead, who are we really reaching? If the answer is only those who are already in motion, then our impact is partial. If the answer includes the invisible, unmeasurable, unbranded poor—then we are on the edge of true social investment.
South Africa’s inequality is not just economic—it is moral. And CSI is one of the few tools we have that can cut across the fence lines of privilege. But only if we dare to look over the fence in the first place.
Let’s not be so busy counting the lives we’ve touched that we forget the ones we’ve never met. CSI, if done correctly, should not only follow the light; it should be brave enough to walk into the dark.
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