Is corporate giving philanthropy?

It is important for non-profit organisations to understand the difference in values and purpose when it comes to private philanthropy and corporate social investment. Alignment of such values and purpose is important when making decisions about partnering on projects with any type of grant-making entity.

At the launch of the Trialogue Business in Society Handbook earlier this month, it was reported that the corporate sector in South Africa spent an estimated R9.7-billion on corporate social investment in 2018, a 7% increase in rand terms. Two-thirds of the total spend came from the mining, financial and retail sectors, with mining and quarrying contributing a quarter of total CSI spend.

According to Nick Rockey, Managing Director of Trialogue, the top 100 companies measured by CSI spend invested R6,9 billion, but just 17 companies “accounted for well over half of the total amount spent by the top 100 companies.” Some other interesting statistics showed that 44% of annual spend focused on education; 17% on social and community development with 9% going to health. Close to zero went to social justice organisations.

The Trialogue Handbook is important reading for anyone in the corporate and developmental sectors. It provides a detailed and useful analysis of significant funding and support for non-profit organisations and also shows how increasingly sophisticated current CSI thinking about development has become.

There is no doubt that without this major contribution to our civil society organisations, many highly innovative and

important initiatives would be lost. The report shows that 51% of the annual CSI fund in South Africa went to the non-profit sector and 24% of NPO income came from the corporate sector.