By Zuziwe Khuzwayo, Social Justice Project Manager at IPASA
Understanding where we stand
More than 30 years into democracy, South Africa’s present remains deeply connected to its past. The country continues to grapple with profound racial wealth and income inequality, persistent poverty, and systemic exclusion based on race, class, and gender. For a significant portion of South Africans, the promise of justice which changes their lives considerably remains unfulfilled, and in many ways, the past continues to shape the present.
This reality holds important implications for philanthropy. The sector’s work does not occur in isolation but is shaped by the historical, political, and economic context in which it operates. Understanding these foundations becomes crucial if we are to meaningfully assess both the potential and the limitations of philanthropic impact.
A broader understanding of justice
Throughout this reflection, I intentionally use the word justice rather than the more familiar social justice.
By justice, I refer to a comprehensive approach that acknowledges historical harms and their enduring systemic effects, while committing to ongoing repair through symbolic and substantive redress. This includes reparative, restorative, and redistributive measures that look backward, as well as present and future-oriented commitments. Justice, in this sense, requires us to look both backward and forward simultaneously.
Why transformation has proven challenging
Since 1994, efforts to address the socio-economic deficit inherited from Apartheid have faced significant challenges, complicated by governance issues, policy implementation gaps, and leadership constraints. Non-state actors, including philanthropy, have also encountered limitations in achieving impact commensurate with the scale of need.
However, there may be a deeper layer that warrants examination: the philosophical and structural foundations upon which our society rests. For those working toward social change, an important question emerges: to what extent might substantive justice and transformation be constrained at these foundational levels?
The Social Compact and Its contested meanings
South Africa’s Constitution is widely recognised as a significant achievement in democratic constitutionalism. Yet its role in facilitating substantive redress remains a subject of thoughtful debate.
Some perspectives, rooted in decolonial and Black radical traditions, question whether the Constitution adequately challenges colonial-Apartheid continuities. From this view, the Constitution is seen as having potentially legitimised existing privilege, particularly regarding property and economic rights, rather than fundamentally transforming these arrangements. Critics also raise concerns about whether it sufficiently centres indigenous ways of governance and knowledge systems.
Other perspectives defend the Constitution as containing transformative potential, noting that it departed from purely Western liberal models by granting the state powers to transform society through socio-economic rights and provisions for land restoration. From this viewpoint, the problem is not the Constitution itself, but that government hasn’t had the capacity to fully use the powers it provides.”
This debate remains unresolved. What becomes important for philanthropy is not necessarily to adopt a definitive position, but to recognise that the very framework within which transformation is pursued is contested terrain. This means that some limitations encountered in social change work may be structural rather than merely technical.
Economic paradigms and their implications
A second consideration concerns South Africa’s economic system. An honest question arises: can substantive justice be achieved within the current paradigm of market capitalism – and in South Africa’s case, capital that continues to benefit the few racially?
While this system has generated wealth for some, it has also maintained significant inequality and made limited progress in addressing mass poverty and unemployment. The logic of this system continues to shape access to land, housing, education, healthcare, and economic opportunity.
Philanthropy is structurally connected to this economic order, and this connection may constrain philanthropic impact. Yet this challenge also presents an opportunity: philanthropy can support alternative economic thinking that places human and planetary wellbeing at the centre. Emerging approaches such as wellbeing economics, and feminist economics thinking offer pathways worth exploring.
Centring injustice rather than ideals
Much dominant thinking about justice draws from idealised philosophical traditions that focus on what a perfectly just society should look like. Critical scholars have suggested an alternative: that justice should be understood through the actual struggle against injustice. They argue that it is in sites of contestation around land, wages, service delivery, discrimination, or dignity, that the real demands of justice become visible.
This shift prioritises injustice as our entry point rather than abstract ideals. It calls for democratic spaces of contestation, recognition of plurality, and honest reflection on whose voices are amplified and whose remain marginalised.
Where do we go from here?
At IPASA’s recent Annual Philanthropy Symposium, it became clear that philanthropy is at a moment of reflection about its role going forward. It recognises that the current trajectory of philanthropy is not delivering hoped-for outcomes at the required depth and scale. This acknowledgment invites an important question: if the present approach is insufficient, what future does philanthropy want to work toward?
What has become evident is that there are diverse perspectives on social justice—not only in wider society but within organisations like IPASA itself. Rather than viewing this diversity as a problem, it can be viewed as an opportunity for deeper understanding. The aim is not to achieve consensus but to stimulate thoughtful debate and create space for different viewpoints to be heard.
These different positions might be broadly understood along a spectrum: perspectives that foreground decolonisation and raise fundamental questions about the Constitution’s intent; views that see the Constitution as a valuable framework for transformation; and looser interpretations that, while well-intentioned, may risk diluting what social justice work entails. There are also funders who do not yet see a clear relationship between their work and social justice concerns.
This raises important questions: Should we work toward the lowest common denominator that everyone can agree on? Or should we maintain space for more challenging conversations, even if they create discomfort? How inclusive or exclusive should this work be? These questions require ongoing reflection, particularly for an organisation with diverse membership representing different perspectives and approaches.
Practical pathways – from doing good to making good
Despite real constraints, there is meaningful opportunity for the sector to play a constructive role in working toward structural change. This calls for a shift from alleviating harm to influencing the conditions that create a more just society. With nearly half of South Africans under 35 unemployed, the current approach may not be socially sustainable.
A justice-oriented philanthropic practice might consider changes at three interconnected levels:
- Deepening Reflection in the Sector: It is encouraging that the sector is engaging with justice-centred thinkers from different worldviews and philosophical orientations. Continuing to deepen this engagement across disciplines such as history, philosophy, economics, sociology, the arts, and grassroots knowledge systems, offers valuable opportunities for learning. This requires getting comfortable with discomfort and allowing space for difficult conversations, not only at conferences but within foundation boards and individual practice. Examining foundational assumptions enables deeper understanding of who benefits from current arrangements and whether this allocation seems just or equitable.
- Considering Systemic Approaches: Grounded in thinking that acknowledges historical injustice, it becomes clear that the challenges philanthropy addresses were often systemically created. Their resolution may benefit from systemic approaches operating in an intersectional manner and collaboratively across sectors. Areas that might warrant consideration include: investing in long-term research, advocacy, and movement-building; supporting interventions aimed at substantive historical redress; prioritising communities facing the greatest challenges; exploring work that others might be hesitant to undertake, such as supporting alternative economic thinking; emphasising community ownership and self-determination; and adopting longer-term metrics that reflect the structural nature of this work. This requires patient social investment committed to long-term transformation.
- Engaging with Policy: Philanthropy operates within the public sphere and has both the opportunity and responsibility to contribute to shaping just policy. This might involve deliberate investment in policy-oriented research, sustained engagement with government, and maintaining commitment to justice-centred frameworks.
Looking forward
Justice-oriented philanthropy also invites deepened individual reflection. Each of us might consider our own positionality, power, and privilege, and reflect on how our assumptions and methods may inadvertently perpetuate inequity. At a wider societal level, continuous discourse is essential to inform collective action toward substantive justice.
South Africa’s social compact remains a work in progress. Philanthropy should be recognised for its contributions, but it should never be mistaken for justice itself. The deeper work involves examining and potentially transforming the arrangements that create the conditions which make extensive philanthropy necessary.
Perhaps the ultimate aspiration for justice-oriented philanthropy should be its effectiveness in advancing a society so just, that the sector eventually becomes less necessary. Justice, as Francesca Albanese reminds us, is always unfinished business. However, each generation has an opportunity to meaningfully shift the trajectory within its own lifetime.
This is the conversation IPASA seeks to foster—not to arrive at easy answers, but to create space for the difficult questions that might lead us toward more just and equitable futures.