South African companies invest over R13bn annually in CSI, according to the 2025 Trialogue Business in Society Handbook. While most companies and nonprofits invest in monitoring and evaluation (M&E) processes to assess their investments, the challenge is often designing systems that generate meaningful insights that serve multiple stakeholders and inform better decision-making. Understanding how to implement M&E effectively and avoid common pitfalls can transform it from an administrative burden into a strategic asset.
Unlike procuring goods or services, where returns are easily quantified, CSI funding requires different mechanisms to demonstrate value. M&E provides this mechanism, ensuring that those receiving funds can account for their use and show how social value is generated in return. For companies with rigorous governance processes, this reporting is often a condition of funding.
However, when M&E is limited to essential functions, organisations miss a more significant opportunity. Well-designed monitoring and evaluation systems can do more than verify that social interventions are performing as planned.
They can identify which programme elements are working well and should be amplified or scaled, and which are underperforming and should be improved or discontinued. When data is tracked over time or benchmarked against similar initiatives, it creates a body of knowledge that can inform strategy, contribute to broader developmental practice, and even influence policy. The true value of M&E is its potential for learning.
Curiosity-driven M&E drives learning
What distinguishes learning-oriented M&E from purely compliance-focused measurement is the underlying intention. When companies and organisations approach M&E with a genuine interest in understanding what works and why, the process becomes investigative rather than simply verificatory.
This perspective shift has practical implications. Instead of focusing exclusively on outputs, learning-oriented M&E examines outcomes and tries to understand the conditions that enable success. It requires a willingness to discover that initial assumptions may be incorrect and the flexibility to adjust approaches accordingly.
This analysis becomes particularly valuable when programmes aim for replication or scale.
The quality of M&E insights also depends significantly on who participates in their design. When measurement frameworks are developed unilaterally by funders and imposed on implementing partners, the relationship becomes extractive rather than collaborative. Neither party derives particular value from the exercise, and the quality of information suffers.
Trialogue’s research shows a positive trend shift in this dynamic. Over 80% of companies now report collaborating with implementing partners on M&E processes. This is a substantial increase from about one-third just four years ago. This trend matters because nonprofits possess crucial knowledge about community contexts, understand what can realistically be measured in their operating environments and bear practical responsibility for data collection.
The principle of participation extends beyond implementing partners. Beneficiaries themselves hold important knowledge about whether programmes meet real needs and how interventions might be improved. However, less than half of companies currently involve beneficiaries in M&E design. This represents not only a missed opportunity for better data but also for more responsive programming.
Theory of change frameworks for strategic benefit
Good M&E is underpinned by good strategy. The theory of change framework (which shows how specific actions lead step-by-step to the change you want to achieve) has become increasingly prevalent in corporate M&E because it maps a clear pathway from programme activities to the intended impact. However, the framework's effectiveness depends on how and when it is applied.
M&E is best when there is dedicated capacity, preferably someone with substantive programme knowledge, who maintains ongoing engagement with the framework and systematically examines incoming data.
This could involve starting simply with a limited set of practical indicators and adding complexity as data collection processes mature. Since numerical data alone rarely provides a complete picture of social change, capturing both quantitative and qualitative insights is important.
Setting realistic timeframes is as crucial. Social impact takes time, often exceeding staff tenure or strategic planning cycles. Managing stakeholder expectations about these longer timeframes, while identifying interim indicators of progress, helps prevent the framework from being dismissed as insufficiently grounded in observable results.
Allowing good data to direct decisions
Analysis and application of M&E, or ‘closing the loop’, represents the critical final step.
Many organisations compile M&E reports that are presented to stakeholders and subsequently filed without driving substantive change. The knowledge remains confined to documents rather than flowing into strategic decisions.
However, when M&E insights do influence decisions, the investment yields returns not only in accountability but in improved social outcomes. Programmes are refined based on evidence, cost-effective approaches are expanded and unsuccessful elements are discontinued.
Curiosity-driven, cleverly designed, well-executed and widely shared M&E has game-changing potential for social development efforts. Organisations that embrace this approach will find that their investment in M&E yields more than comprehensive reports. They will generate insights that improve their own programming while contributing to a future in which the development sector collectively understands how to achieve meaningful, sustainable social change.
