Beyond Wealth: How South African Philanthropists Are Shaping Tomorrow’s Legacy 

When we talk about wealth in South Africa, we often focus on inequality, on the gap between the haves and have-nots. But there’s another conversation we should be having: What are the wealthiest families doing with their resources, and how are South African philanthropists quietly reshaping our social landscape? This isn’t about celebrating wealth for its own sake. It’s about understanding a major but often invisible force in our development ecosystem: the strategic deployment of private capital for public good. From the Oppenheimers’ multi-generational commitment to education and conservation, to Allan and Gill Gray’s decades-long support for building a new generation of entrepreneurs, to Patrice Motsepe’s focus on job creation and community development, and Jannie Mouton’s investment in entrepreneurship, high-net-worth South African philanthropists are making choices that ripple through communities, sectors, and generations. The question is: Are we paying enough attention? And more importantly, are we learning from what works?

The Quiet Giants: Private Philanthropy in South Africa 

Unlike their international counterparts who often make headlines with billion-dollar pledges, many South African philanthropists build foundations, fund initiatives, and support organisations without fanfare or public recognition. This discretion is both a strength and a limitation.

Take the Oppenheimer family, whose philanthropic legacy spans decades through initiatives like the Oppenheimer Memorial Trust, the Mary Oppenheimer Daughters, and the Oppenheimer Generations Foundation, which focuses on supporting small businesses in addition to education, healthcare, and conservation. Their investments have touched thousands of lives, yet many South Africans would struggle to name a single initiative.

The Rupert family places a strong emphasis on education, conservation and poverty alleviation. Through the Rupert Education Foundation and the Khaya Lam Land Reform Project, they support funding educational programmes, establishing conservation areas, contributing to housing initiatives by providing title deeds, and establishing a relief fund for small businesses. Their philanthropic interests extend into arts and culture (via the Rembrandt Group’s historical foundations) and sport (including co-founding the Laureus Sport for Good Foundation). Meanwhile, the Ackerman Family Foundation has invested more than R65 million in initiatives focused on job creation, skills development and entrepreneurship, including R9.4 million towards young entrepreneurs and emerging farmers. The Lubner family’s commitment to community development and disability inclusion through the Lubner Family Foundation has created pathways to opportunity for countless young people, yet their work remains largely beneath the public radar.

Equally significant is the legacy of Allan and Gill Gray, whose philanthropy began in 1979 with a charitable trust supporting organisations addressing South Africa’s social and economic challenges. In 2005, they established the Allan Gray Orbis Foundation to tackle poverty and unemployment by educating and mentoring high-impact South African entrepreneurs. Its sister non-profit, Allan & Gill Gray Philanthropy South Africa, further strengthens the entrepreneurial ecosystem through grantmaking and the incubation of social ventures. With the creation of the Allan & Gill Gray Foundation in 2015, their philanthropic efforts, now operating under the umbrella of Allan & Gill Gray Philanthropies, have expanded to a global scale.

Patrice Motsepe and Dr Precious Moloi-Motsepe, through the Motsepe Foundation, have made significant contributions to education, job creation and community development, with special emphasis on historically disadvantaged South African communities. Their initiatives include support for university bursaries, investment in school infrastructure and the promotion of youth extra-curricular programmes in sports and arts. Although their work is publicly more visible than many private foundations, the underlying philosophy remains the same: long-term, strategic philanthropic responsibility aimed at structural change rather than short-term relief.

Prominent Mozambican–South African politician and humanitarian Graça Machel, through the Graça Machel Trust and her involvement with initiatives such as the South African Future Trust, has dedicated her efforts to improving the lives of women and children across Africa. Her work spans education, health, and advocacy for vulnerable communities. Similarly, Trevor Noah, through the Trevor Noah Foundation launched in 2018, focuses on youth development and quality education for ages 5-9 in underserved communities, bringing both visibility and resources to early childhood development.

Then there’s Jannie Mouton, whose PSG Group has channelled significant resources into entrepreneurship development, recognising that job creation happens not only through charity but through viable businesses. His approach reflects a growing understanding among South African philanthropists of the distinction between philanthropy vs charity: handouts don’t build economies, but strategic investment in human potential does.

Mouton’s PSG Group recently announced a R7.2 billion takeover of Curro Holdings, South Africa’s largest private education provider. This isn’t a business acquisition; it’s a philanthropic one. The move represents the single largest philanthropic deal in South African history and signals a fundamental shift in how we should think about philanthropic responsibility.

Rather than funding individual scholarships or building isolated schools, Mouton is acquiring an entire education ecosystem: schools, students, proven operational systems, and the capacity to scale quality education at unprecedented speed. This is philanthropy as infrastructure. This is philanthropy thinking in systems, not symptoms. And it’s exactly the kind of bold, structural intervention that South Africa’s developmental challenges demand.

The Mouton Model: Philanthropic Responsibility Through Systemic Infrastructure

Jannie Mouton’s R7.2 billion Curro acquisition deserves closer examination because it represents a paradigm shift in how we conceptualise philanthropy. Traditional philanthropy examples often focus on programmes such as scholarships, bursaries, school feeding schemes, and teacher training. While these initiatives are valuable, their impact tends to be incremental rather than transformative. They work at the margins. Mouton is doing something different: he’s acquiring the means of production itself.

By taking Curro Holdings into a philanthropic foundation, Mouton isn’t just funding education; he’s owning and operating an education system that can serve as a laboratory for innovation, a benchmark for quality, and potentially, a model for scale. This approach addresses several critical challenges simultaneously:

Scale: Individual school projects, no matter how well-funded, struggle to reach meaningful numbers. Curro’s existing footprint of thousands of students provides immediate scale, with infrastructure and systems already in place to grow further.

Sustainability: Unlike donor-funded programmes that collapse when funding ends, Curro operates as a viable entity with revenue streams, operational efficiency, and the capacity for self-sustainability. The philanthropic ownership structure means surpluses can be reinvested in expansion and quality rather than extracted as profit.

Innovation capacity: Owning an education system provides the freedom to experiment with curriculum, pedagogy, technology integration, and new models of affordability without the constraints that bind public education or the profit pressures that limit private operators.

Demonstration effect: If successful, this model proves that high-quality, accessible education can be delivered at scale in South Africa, creating evidence and blueprints that can inform both private and public sector approaches.

This is the kind of structural philanthropy that could genuinely change South Africa’s education crisis. It’s thinking in decades, not fiscal years. It’s addressing systems, not just symptoms. And most importantly, it’s aligning philanthropic capital with the actual architecture of service delivery rather than working around the edges.

The question it raises for other wealthy families is provocative: What if more South African philanthropists stopped funding programmes and started acquiring infrastructure? What if they bought healthcare networks, agricultural value chains, renewable energy systems, or digital connectivity infrastructure and operated them as social enterprises within philanthropic structures? What could become possible? And perhaps more pointedly: Where are the families who have built significant wealth through more recent economic empowerment transactions? What if this next generation of high-net worth individuals joined the philanthropic ecosystem with the same structural thinking and long-term commitment?

The South African Context: Why Is Philanthropy Important in Our Society 

South Africa’s philanthropic landscape is shaped by our particular history and our pressing present realities. Our wealthiest families operate in a context of extreme inequality, historical injustice, and urgent developmental needs. This creates both moral imperatives and practical opportunities that differ from those in more developed economies.

The Trust Deficit: In a country where wealth accumulation is often viewed through the lens of historical dispossession, philanthropic responsibility must navigate complex questions of legitimacy and intent. Is this genuine commitment to transformation, or merely reputation management? The most effective philanthropists understand this and design their interventions with transparency, community participation, and measurable outcomes.

The Scale Challenge: Our developmental needs are vast. Even the most generous South African philanthropists cannot replace government’s role in providing basic services and social protection. But what private capital can do, and what it does best, is innovate, pilot new approaches, take risks that government cannot, and demonstrate what’s possible before advocating for scale.

The Ecosystem Approach: The most sophisticated South African philanthropists no longer think in terms of isolated projects. They think in terms of ecosystems. How does investment in early childhood development connect to primary education, to youth employment, to entrepreneurship, to economic growth? How do we align private capital with government priorities, with international donor funding, with corporate social investment, to create coherent strategies rather than fragmented interventions?

The First Generation Imperative Globally, there is significant focus on the next generation of philanthropists, as wealth transfer to the children of established wealthy families is predicted to be the largest in human history. But in South Africa, we face a different and equally important challenge: we have a growing cohort of first-generation wealth creators. These are individuals who have built significant fortunes through more recent economic transformation, business acumen, and entrepreneurial success.

Unlike families with multi-generational wealth and established philanthropic traditions, these first-generation wealth-holders are building both personal legacies and family legacies simultaneously, often without the institutional knowledge, networks, or philanthropic infrastructure that older wealth families have developed over decades.

The question is how do we as a society create an inclusive philanthropic ecosystem that welcomes, supports, and celebrates first-generation South African philanthropists? How do we provide the frameworks, networks, and knowledge-sharing that enable these wealth-creators to establish enduring philanthropic legacies? And most importantly, how do we ensure their children, the next generation who will inherit this newly created wealth, are equipped to continue and expand their parents’ commitment to social transformation? The children of these first-generation wealth-holders could establish multi-generational philanthropic traditions that reshape South Africa’s development trajectory, but only if we intentionally create the conditions for this to happen.

What Works: Lessons from Effective Private Philanthropy

Having worked extensively in the social, solidarity, and impact economies, I’ve observed patterns in what makes private philanthropy truly transformative:

1. Long-term commitment over short-term wins: The Oppenheimers’ decades-long investment in conservation doesn’t just protect biodiversity; it’s creating sustainable tourism economies in rural areas. Allan and Gill Gray’s 45-year commitment to building an entrepreneurial ecosystem demonstrates how sustained support compounds impact over time. The Lubners’ focus on disability inclusion doesn’t just fund individual interventions; it’s built pathways for accessible education and greater participation in society for disabled youth. Transformation takes time, and the families who understand this achieve deeper impact.

2. Systemic thinking over symptomatic relief: The Motsepes and Ackermans focus on job creation rather than just welfare support recognises that sustainable development requires economic participation, not dependency. The Allan Gray Orbis Foundation’s approach to nurturing high-impact entrepreneurs, and Mouton’s entrepreneurship programmes understand that small business development requires not just capital but mentorship, market access, and business skills. The most effective South African philanthropists address root causes, not just symptoms.

3. Collaboration over competition: The best private philanthropists don’t work in isolation. They partner with government, co-invest with other funders, support civil society organisations, and engage with communities as co-designers rather than beneficiaries. They understand that no single actor, no matter how well-resourced, can solve complex social challenges alone.

4. Evidence over assumptions: Increasingly, South African philanthropists are demanding impact data. What changed because of this investment? How many lives were improved? What worked and what didn’t? This shift from faith-based giving to evidence-based philanthropy is crucial for learning, adaptation, and scale.

The Road Not Yet Taken: Untapped Potential

For all the good work being done, South Africa’s private philanthropy remains largely untapped in its potential. Here’s what could improve:

Greater coordination: Imagine if South African philanthropists came together around shared priorities, pooling resources and expertise to tackle youth unemployment, or the climate crisis, or education quality. The collective impact could be exponential rather than additive.

More risk capital for innovation: Government and traditional funders are often constrained by accountability frameworks that favour proven models over experimentation. Private South African philanthropists have the freedom to back bold ideas, to fail fast and learn, to support the kind of social innovation that could unlock breakthrough solutions.

Strategic use of influence: Beyond their financial resources, wealthy families have networks, platforms, and political access. When used responsibly, this influence can advocate for policy changes, unlock systemic barriers, and create enabling environments for broader transformation.

Investment in the rainbow economies: As outlined in our recent trends report, South Africa’s future lies in emerging sectors: the digital economy, the green economy, the creative economy, and the care economy. Strategic philanthropy that aligns with these growth areas, that prepares young people for future opportunities rather than past industries, could accelerate our economic transformation.

Supporting first-generation South African philanthropists: The philanthropic sector needs to actively create pathways for first-generation wealth-holders to engage meaningfully. This means providing mentorship, sharing best practices, creating peer networks, and celebrating early-stage philanthropic efforts. It means recognising that building philanthropic infrastructure takes time and intentionality, and that first-generation philanthropists may approach giving differently than families with established traditions.

Family structures for sustained impact: More families need to formalise their philanthropic responsibility, create governance structures that outlive founders, and intentionally cultivate the next generation’s commitment to giving. This isn’t just about wealth preservation; it’s about impact preservation. This is particularly important for the emerging generation of South African philanthropists. Whether wealth has been accumulated through traditional business, economic empowerment transactions, or other pathways, the responsibility to contribute to the broader social ecosystem remains the same. By establishing formal philanthropic structures now, this next generation can ensure their wealth becomes a force for transformation rather than simply accumulation, embedding values of social responsibility that will endure across generations. 

Conclusion: Legacy as a Verb, Not a Noun

The families I’ve mentioned, and many others I haven’t, are writing South Africa’s development story whether we acknowledge it or not. Their choices about where to invest, what to support, and how to structure their giving create ripples that touch education systems, conservation areas, entrepreneurship ecosystems, and community infrastructure. But legacy isn’t something you have. It’s something you do. It’s the daily choices, the strategic bets, the willingness to learn from failure, the courage to back unconventional ideas, and the humility to listen to those you seek to serve.

South African philanthropists have an unprecedented opportunity right now. With government resources stretched, international donor funding declining, and developmental needs growing, private capital could be the catalytic force that unlocks transformation. But only if it’s deployed strategically, collaboratively, and with genuine commitment to changing systems, not just symptoms.

The question for South African philanthropists is not whether to give, but how to give in ways that genuinely change the world. For first-generation wealth-holders, the question is also about when to begin: the earlier philanthropic structures are established, the greater the potential for compounding impact over time. The question for the rest of us is whether we’re creating the conditions, the partnerships, and the honest conversations that allow private philanthropy to achieve its full potential. Because ultimately, changing the world isn’t something that happens to us or for us. It’s something we do together, each bringing our unique resources, whether financial, intellectual, or experiential, in service of a future we all want to inhabit.

The families who understand this, who see their wealth as a tool for collective transformation rather than private preservation, are the ones whose legacies will endure. Not because their names are on buildings, but because their values are embedded in thriving communities, sustainable economies, and empowered young people building the South Africa we all deserve.

About the Author

Reana Rossouw is the owner of Next Generation Consultants a specialist impact advisory company that focuses extensively on social innovation, sustainable development and investment as well as impact management and measurement. For evidence of our work please visit our website, or download our latest research report on trends and insights for the social, solidarity and impact economies in South Africa.