General Interest

CSI needs profound return on investment

9 July 2010

Tracey Henry is CEO of Tshikululu Social Investments.

Albert Einstein once said that “œeverything that can be counted does not necessarily count and everything that counts cannot necessarily be counted”. In all our development work, we should worry less about the rand value of our corporate social investment (CSI), and more about backing real change champions whose work broadens opportunity in South Africa. Our efforts should be to get a proper social return on our investments.

Indeed, it is a good time to take stock of  CSI, a form of societal intervention no longer viewed as a back office function within companies, but often as an integral part of doing business. This is evident in many spheres, from the World Cup announcement of FIFA’s own social investment programme for Africa, to highway billboards announcing company commitments to development, and to an increasing trend to include presentations on the social role of business in society in executive leadership programmes at top business schools. Whether this increase in activity and spend is as a result of scorecard imperatives, stakeholder engagement, or legislative requirements, is neither here nor there.

What really matters is the long-term impact of CSI, rather than its current popularity in the private sector. In looking to this, it is vital for CSI practitioners to evaluate the needs of development NGOs with the same rigour as those of profit-making entities. After all, both rely critically on leadership, capacity constraints, stakeholder engagement and partnerships. And both must understand the importance of not focusing purely on short-term gains but also thinking of long-term and sustainable development and growth. Both must articulate a desired return on investment and approach challenges systemically.

Yet corporate funders of NGOs are sometimes dismissive of the importance of the partnerships and stakeholder engagement that are required to understand real developmental needs, settling instead for a top-down approach to development, and simple photo opportunities.

This is too often to forget that the rand value of CSI and its attendant publicity is mainly irrelevant. What matters is how companies decide their social investment strategy and their partners of choice. To get this right requires a deep and nuanced understanding of the development sector; sound internal CSI governance mechanisms and procedures to manage, invest, monitor and evaluate CSI funds; and a willingness to take this work on for the long haul.

It means choosing strategy options through in-depth research, reviewing past practice and with regular progress stock takes. For identifying CSI partners should be more real than merely choosing from a list of high profile beneficiaries of funding fashion. It is properly a process of background analysis, close engagement with others funders and stakeholders in development, intensive consultation within and beyond company leadership, and ensuring a clear fit with CSI strategies that make developmental sense. Done properly, this work is as serious as any other part of a company’s investment profile, and its results often just as profound.