[WEBINAR] Trends driving CSI and development in 2025

Recent geopolitical events, including general elections, regime change, and new socioeconomic realities, are having a dramatic effect on global developmental work. In February, Trialogue held a webinar exploring corporate social investment (CSI) and development trends and how companies and nonprofit organisations (NPOs) can adapt while maximising social investment impact.

Panellists Nick Rockey (MD of Trialogue), Patricia Loyola (Director of Management and Social Investment at Comunitas in Brazil), Priya Naik (founder and CEO of Samhita Social Ventures in India) and Feryal Domingo (Acting Executive Director of Inyathelo) discussed the immediate and long-term trends likely to shape CSI and development sectors this year and into the future.

How South African companies view CSI

In South Africa, the evolution of CSI has seen companies move from a welfarist approach to today’s more strategic approach, which emphasises:

• Collaboration with stakeholders
• Cross-sector engagement
• Knowledge sharing
• Advocacy

Companies are increasingly integrating CSI with core business functions while shifting away from short-term programmes. Other trends include exploring outcomes-based funding and collaborating to achieve greater impact (see diagram below). No one approach is preferred – companies should adapt an approach that makes the most strategic sense.

Source: Trialogue Business in Society Handbook 2023.

CSI trends: Expenditure

In 2024, 55% of South African companies reported increased CSI expenditure, slightly down from 59% in 2023, but still higher than pandemic-era figures (44% in 2022 and 36% in 2021).

Source: Trialogue Business in Society Handbook 2024.

In 2025, we find ourselves in a precarious environment with global shifts likely to affect giving. US President Donald Trump has frozen US foreign aid and developmental work, which will have a stark impact on the sector in the coming years.  

Rockey and Naik both argued that the government should fill gaps – Naik said governments are obliged to deliver services “with greater efficiency, efficacy and inclusion, because there is very little inclusion in our world right now”, while Rockey pointed out this could be difficult in a fiscally constrained environment.

India’s mandatory CSR approach

In India, CSR became mandatory under Section 135 of the Companies Act (2013), requiring companies to spend a portion of their profits on social responsibility. This legislation made CSR a board responsibility, which means it has “an ecosystem of support internally”, according to Naik.

A notable trend is the shift from individual flagship programmes to collaborative work with government and other stakeholders. While the private sector can’t replace global funding, the goal is to create “a continuum of responsibilities” among all stakeholders, which will make it easier to determine “the right actor to solve which problem and which point in time”.

Naik said the sector will be devastated by the recent funding cuts, and finding new donors will not be easy. “We are at least two years away from funders who understand the complexity of creating public goods,” she said, adding that nonprofits do not have the luxury of deliberating over sustainability strategies and need to act now.

Some strategic shifts within the sector might include:

• Shifting from programmatic funding to building institutional capacity
• Creating a citizen-centric ecosystem by investing in digital public infrastructure
• Shifting from grantmaking to offering returnable grants, enabling the recycling of funds and entry into the credit sector. Around 90% of recipients of these funds have paid them back, says Naik.
• Turning to local philanthropy instead of relying exclusively on foreign funding
• Having communities pay proportionately for services received so that “recipients become participants, participants become customers, and customers become champions”.

Brazil’s dual-focus strategy

Loyola said a notable trend in Brazil is to focus on both collaborative partnerships and short-term, direct interventions to alleviate the effects of severe inequality in the country. The global backlash against environmental, social and governance (ESG) initiatives has created an opportunity for certain companies to demonstrate impact.

The climate crisis is top of mind for 85% of Brazilian companies. “We may not have hurricanes or earthquakes, but we have a lot more severe flooding, which affects vulnerable people,” Loyola explained. “A lot of youth stay out of school when their schools are under water – or they serve as shelters for people who have lost their homes.”

Some companies have provided civil society with seed funding to try ideas or model public policies and scale successful initiatives – success stories include reducing the infant mortality rate in municipalities and reducing incidence of violence and homicide in Brazilian cities.

Like Naik, Loyola believes AI will permeate all aspects of the sector, and although this will bear dividends for development, it may present a challenge in less developed economies, where a skills gap exists.

Strategies for nonprofit sustainability

Companies traditionally support nonprofit organisations (NPOs) with funding to achieve impact at scale. However, the CSI landscape is shifting.

“We’re no longer operating in a world of simple grant requests,” said Domingo. “We’re navigating a very complex ecosystem, driven largely by global pressures, innovating funding models, and a laser focus on demonstrable impact.”  

Domingo said key adaptation strategies include diversifying income sources to reduce dependency on single funders and building institutional capacity rather than focusing solely on programme funding. However, this may mean “a different kind of individual” is needed within NPOs, Domingo said. “Perhaps CSI should move out of transactional relationships and build collaborations that help to create shared value,” she suggested.

How companies can assist nonprofits

Rockey said the role of companies is not to “provide broad systematic relief” – however, it can consider multistakeholder collaboration and/or advocacy work to make an impact beyond frequently excellent CSI programmes.

In addition, companies can help NPOs navigate some of the adjustments they need to make to continue working uninterruptedly.

Domingo said possible interventions might include:

• Investing in digital transformation – supporting technology adoption, AI integration, and using monitoring and evaluation (M&E) to share insights
• Providing regulatory guidance by educating NPOs about the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) regulations (particularly Recommendation 8, which focuses on the potential for NPOs to be used as vehicles for money laundering and terrorist financing)
• Assisting NPOs with new South African Revenue Service (SARS) regulations regarding Section 18A certification
• Assisting with Department of Social Development (DSD) compliance so NPOs are not deregistered. She recommended that NPOs should check their status to discover if they are fully compliant
• Helping to professionalise the nonprofit sector – improving governance, training and upskilling staff (particularly in technology), attracting and retaining top talent, creating career pathways, and more.

Finally, the sector must be brave, innovate, operate at scale, and come up with creative solutions as never before, said Rockey.

“You don’t need to stop programmatic funding – but consider innovating and coming up with new way to influence the broader ecosystem.”

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