An overview of the CSI landscape in South Africa

The 2006 forensic report prepared for Zuma's trial that never saw the light of day ... now made available in the public interest.

The outcome of the ANCs long-awaited KwaZulu-Natal conference was a win for the Thuma Mina crowd. (Delwyn Verasamy/M&G)

Trialogue estimates total corporate social investment (CSI) expenditure in South Africa at R8.1-billion for the 2014/15 financial year, representing a year-on-year decline in expenditure of 6% in real terms, following a real decline of 2% in 2013/14.

Companies that participated in Trialogue’s 2015 CSI research cited a drop in corporate profits as the main reason for their decline in CSI spend.

The Trialogue CSI Handbook, now in its 18th edition, contains a breakdown of where this CSI expenditure goes and what the trends in social investment are.

Key findings include:

National and Gauteng-based projects received the largest share of CSI budgets. See figure 14 of the Trialogue 2015 CSI Handbook for the breakdown per province.
Education received the most CSI spend, and this is focused at school level and maths and science. Pages 88-90 of the Trialogue 2015 CSI Handbook show the distribution of CSI funding by development sector and an overview of CSI spend on education.
Large companies are not particularly focused with their CSI expenditure. On average, they support projects in four provinces and across 4.6 development sectors. Most companies fund more than ten organisations, with 17 percent of funding over 100 organisations in a year. To see how this compares to the United States, see page 76 of the Trialogue 2015 CSI Handbook.
Giving is largely traditional – to projects run by NPOs – with few corporates considering new structures or finance mechanisms. See figure 18 of the Trialogue 2015 CSI Handbook.
Companies and NPOs increasingly claim to conduct monitoring and evaluation to measure outcomes of all projects. To ascertain to what extent, see pages 55 to 57 of the Trialogue 2015 CSI Handbook.

From its first issue in 1998, the Trialogue CSI Handbook has mapped South Africa’s corporate social investment landscape and helped establish the standards for best practice in CSI, becoming the go-to reference guide on every CSI practitioner’s desk. The 18th edition of the Trialogue CSI Handbook extends this strong tradition of research.

Trialogue will host its annual CSI Conference on 24 and 25 May 2016, at The Forum in Bryanston, Johannesburg, where the state of CSI in South Africa and how to improve impact will be engaged with in greater detail. Click here to register for this leading industry event.

About Trialogue

Trialogue is one of the few consultancies in South Africa that focuses exclusively on corporate responsibility issues. With close on two decades’ experience in the field, Trialogue has become established as a leading consultancy and publisher, driving the development of, and knowledge within, the sustainability and corporate social investment arenas.