ROI for CSR?

Return on investment has become a buzzword that dominates nearly every corporate conversation, but when it crosses into the space of social responsibility it takes on a very different and dangerous meaning.

CSR REPORTERS observes, the language of ROI, which has long belonged to profit and market growth, is increasingly being applied to corporate social responsibility initiatives, and in the process many truly impactful projects die before they even see daylight. Executives sitting in boardrooms now ask of a proposed borehole project, a rural health initiative, or a youth empowerment scheme: What is the ROI? How will it benefit our bottom line? What is the measurable financial return? And if the numbers do not add up in the narrow terms of sales or visibility, the project is quietly shelved.

This fixation has become a silent killer of genuinely transformative ideas. The tragedy is not just that communities lose out, but that companies fail to grasp what corporate social responsibility actually means. CSR was never meant to be an extension of a marketing budget or a tool for generating immediate returns. It is supposed to be the bridge between businesses and society, a recognition that corporations do not operate in a vacuum but in environments where their success is intertwined with the well-being of the people around them. When ROI becomes the metric, that bridge is weakened, and CSR risks becoming another glossy campaign rather than a genuine commitment.

Nigeria offers countless examples of how this plays out. Community projects that could have built long-term trust and goodwill are discarded because they are not “sexy” enough to generate media coverage or quick sales. A company may choose to paint a few classrooms because the photo opportunity will trend on social media, while declining to fund the training of teachers which, though less visible, would have had far greater impact on learning outcomes. Another may organize a roadshow on environmental awareness because the branding opportunities are plentiful, but ignore the waste management infrastructure their host community desperately needs. The obsession with ROI makes companies lean towards visibility over substance, and short-term gains over lasting change.

This distortion is worsened by the fact that ROI itself is misunderstood. Companies tend to see return only in monetary terms, overlooking the intangible but critical benefits of responsible action. A borehole in a water-stressed community may not increase sales of beverages directly, but it creates goodwill that shields the company from hostility in times of crisis. A vocational skills programme may not immediately translate into higher market share, but it builds a generation of skilled youths who will eventually become employees, consumers, and advocates for the brand. These are returns too but they are social returns, reputational returns, and sustainability returns. They may not fit neatly into a quarterly report, but they sustain a business far longer than any short-term spike in sales.

It is time to call out the dangerous conflation of CSR with profit-making ventures. The insistence on ROI in its narrowest definition is fundamentally at odds with the spirit of responsibility. No one asks what the ROI is for obeying environmental laws or paying taxes, yet when it comes to investing in the communities that give companies their land, labor, and social license to operate, suddenly the language of “what’s in it for us” dominates. This double standard exposes how shallow much of corporate CSR rhetoric has become. If responsibility is only pursued when it benefits the company directly, then it is no longer responsibility—it is marketing masquerading as benevolence.

Communities themselves see through this. They are often frustrated by projects that feel tokenistic, projects designed more for press releases than for real change. They know when a company is truly committed and when it is simply ticking a box. This mistrust has long-term consequences. A host community that feels used and ignored becomes a source of unrest, resistance, and even sabotage. The absence of genuine CSR breeds resentment, and that resentment eventually affects the very ROI companies claim to be protecting. Ironically, by rejecting meaningful projects on the grounds that they do not bring immediate returns, corporations may be undermining their own long-term stability and profitability.

The conversation, therefore, must shift from ROI to value. What value does this initiative add to the community? How does it improve lives? How does it contribute to sustainability? And crucially, how does it strengthen the relationship between company and society? These are the metrics that matter, not how many more crates of product are sold in the following month. Forward-looking companies across the world are already moving in this direction, adopting frameworks that emphasize social return on investment (SROI) and impact measurement rather than narrow financial indicators. Nigerian companies would do well to learn from this, before their credibility is further eroded.

Great CSR ideas do not die because they lack impact, they die because decision-makers insist on measuring them with the wrong tools. A hammer cannot measure temperature, and ROI cannot capture the worth of a clean water supply, a functioning health centre, or a generation of empowered youths.

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