Corporate charity as political intervention
Social investment programmes reflect the view that companies serve a range of stakeholders
The notion of "good giving" in voluntary support of community upliftment is very much a zeitgeist of our times. A global Barclays Wealth survey in 2012 found that, as a proportion of disposable income given to community causes by employed individuals, South Africans were the second-most generous people in the world, after Americans. In 2015, Statistics SA reported that the number of people who volunteered unpaid time in support of community projects – most often through churches and schools – had almost doubled in two years, and ran into millions of South Africans. In the private sector, corporate social investment has entrenched itself as standard practice in many companies. Corporate social investment is that part of broader corporate social responsibility that is external to company and employee needs, external to product marketing, and aims at uplifting communities in such a way that the quality of life is generally improved and safeguarded. It is a more focused part of social r...
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