By Hlengiwe Ndlovu – Associate Professor & Deputy Director: Special Initiatives and Partnerships, Centre of African Philanthropy and Social Investment (CAPSI), Wits Business School, University of the Witwatersrand.
Philanthropy is operating in a complex and contested space
Philanthropy is standing at a difficult and consequential crossroads. The ideas that shaped development, democracy, international cooperation and human rights over the past few decades are increasingly under strain, as political polarisation, economic insecurity and the pushback against rights-based and equity agendas reshape the global environment. International relations are also becoming more transactional, with development assistance, trade and diplomacy drawn into narrower calculations of economic and strategic interest. It is within this unsettled context that philanthropy is being asked to think beyond generosity alone, and to confront more carefully the social, political and economic conditions in which giving takes place.
These shifts are particularly significant in the South African context, where the democratic project continues to grapple with the unfinished work of historical justice. More than three decades after the democratic transition, poverty, unemployment, spatial inequality and gendered forms of exclusion remain deeply entrenched. These conditions are often framed as development challenges, yet they also raise broader questions about power, belonging, dignity and the extent to which democratic gains have translated into meaningful social and economic transformation. It is within these tensions that contemporary debates about philanthropy and social justice must be located.
In Rethinking giving amidst deep-rooted inequality
Philanthropy has long played an important role in supporting public life. Across South Africa and elsewhere, philanthropic institutions, corporate social investment programmes and private foundations have supported civil society, expanded access to services, enabled research and advocacy, responded to crises and created spaces for innovation. These contributions matter and should be recognised. Yet, the persistence of inequality requires a more searching conversation about the limits of generosity when the deeper conditions that sustain exclusion remain largely intact.
Social justice asks philanthropy to engage more deeply with the roots of inequality. It requires the sector to look beyond immediate need and to consider the arrangements that make some communities more vulnerable than others. Poverty, hunger, educational exclusion, gender-based violence, poor health outcomes and environmental insecurity are connected to histories, institutions and economic choices. They are also sustained by patterns of ownership, representation, recognition and decision-making. Any serious conversation about philanthropy and social justice must therefore include the question of power.
This is an uncomfortable conversation, but it need not be a hostile one. The point is not to position business, wealth creation or private giving outside the work of justice. Rather, it is to recognise that philanthropy and corporate social investment occupy an important position at the intersection of private resources, public need and social responsibility. Their resources, relationships, institutional capacity and influence can play a meaningful role in widening opportunity, strengthening public life and supporting shared prosperity. The challenge is to ask whether giving can help shift the conditions that make generosity necessary in the first place.
Philanthropy as a key player in social renewal
This does not diminish the value of giving. It gives giving a more demanding purpose. The future of philanthropy will depend partly on its ability to support social renewal: the strengthening of relationships, institutions, civic agency and collective capacities that enable people to participate meaningfully in shaping their own lives. Social renewal requires trust, voice, care, accountability and the patient work of rebuilding the social fabric. It also recognises that communities are already sites of knowledge, survival, leadership and imagination.
- Philanthropy can begin by placing greater value on the knowledge that exists closest to lived realities. Too often, communities are invited into development processes after priorities have already been set, indicators designed and funding categories determined. A more just approach would allow those most affected by inequality to shape the questions, the methods, the measures of success and the direction of change. This requires more than consultation. It requires decision-making arrangements that reflect trust, respect and shared authority.
- The sector also needs to invest more deliberately in the social infrastructure that sustains democratic life. Community organisations, civic networks, women’s formations, youth movements, advocacy groups and local knowledge systems often carry the long-term work of justice with limited resources and high levels of uncertainty. Their labour is not always easily captured through short reporting cycles, yet it is essential to public accountability, community resilience and social transformation. Philanthropy that is serious about social justice should strengthen these foundations of collective life.
- In practical terms, the challenge for philanthropy is not to abandon what it has historically done well. Support for civil society, service delivery, research, advocacy and humanitarian response remains important. What requires greater attention is investment in community agency, civic infrastructure and long-term social change, especially in areas where conventional funding approaches struggle to accommodate uncertainty, experimentation and relationship-building. Philanthropy should continue supporting urgent needs, but it should also create space for the slower work through which dignity, agency and accountability are built.
- This also means rethinking forms of work that are often undervalued because they are relational, slow and difficult to quantify. Care work, community healing, trust-building, intergenerational dialogue, leadership development and the repair of fractured relationships are central to social change. Societies marked by inequality require more than programmes. They require the conditions through which people can imagine themselves as political, social and economic agents with the right to shape the future.
- The language of innovation also deserves careful attention. In many development spaces, innovation is treated as something new, scalable and often technological. Yet some of the most transformative innovations are social. They are found in new forms of participation, community accountability, solidarity economies, cooperative models, participatory grantmaking, feminist funding practices and youth-led civic action. Innovation becomes meaningful when it changes who gets to speak, who decides, who benefits and who is held accountable. It becomes disruptive when it alters the conditions that keep inequality in place.
- There are also practices that philanthropy will need to rethink. Short-termism weakens the possibility of structural change. Overly rigid funding models can force organisations to perform certainty in contexts where uncertainty is part of the work. Narrow measurement frameworks can make visible what is easy to count while obscuring deeper shifts in dignity, agency, solidarity and institutional accountability. A sector committed to social justice must be willing to ask whether its own systems are flexible enough to support the kinds of change it seeks to advance.
- The relationship between philanthropy, civil society, business and the state is especially important. Philanthropy should support civil society as an independent force for public accountability, community voice and democratic participation. It can also work with government and business where collaboration can strengthen public systems, expand opportunity and contribute to the public good. These roles require careful balance. Social justice demands both cooperation and accountability. Development is not only about filling gaps left by the state; it is also about strengthening the social and civic conditions that make public responsibility possible.
Co-created, asset-based African philanthropy
Organisations such as IPASA have an important role to play in this moment. As a convening platform, IPASA can help the sector hold difficult conversations with honesty and care. This role includes supporting learning across philanthropic institutions, civil society, academia, government, business and community-based actors, while helping to build a shared language around equity, accountability and transformation. In doing so, IPASA can contribute to a stronger African conversation on philanthropy, one that recognises the continent not merely as a site of need, but as a source of ideas, practices and traditions of mutual responsibility.
The transformation agenda requires partnership, but partnership must be understood with depth. It cannot mean bringing stakeholders into conversations after the agenda has already been decided. It must involve co-creating priorities, sharing knowledge, shifting resources and building relationships that are strong enough to withstand disagreement. Philanthropy’s future will depend on its capacity to listen differently, fund differently and account differently.
Futures thinking shaped by courage and imagination
Social justice ultimately requires philanthropy to engage questions of imagination. The issue is not only how inequality is managed, but what kinds of social and economic futures are considered possible. At a time when public debate is increasingly polarised and constrained, philanthropy is uniquely positioned to support spaces where alternative ideas, new forms of participation and different models of development can be explored. This is a question about money, but it is also a question about trust, leadership and the forms of justice philanthropy is prepared to make possible.
This article is republished from Independent Philanthropy Association South Africa (IPASA) newsletter, under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article here: https://ipa-sa.org.za/public/reimagining-philanthropy-social-transformation-and-the-future-of-giving/
