Beyond capital: Reimagining CSR in shaping impact outcomes 

For many large corporate philanthropies in Asia, the constraint is increasingly not the amount of capital deployed but the institutional capability required to deploy it effectively. This was the central theme of the Beyond Capital session at PAS 2026, where Girish Ramachandran of Tata Consultancy Services framed the evolution of corporate philanthropy in India as a shift from compliance to capability. Drawing on Jamsetji Tata’s belief that “the community is not merely a stakeholder in business, but its very purpose”, he situated this transition within a longer Asian tradition of business engagement with social development. 

The common consensus on the panel was using philanthropy not to deliver individual programmes but to build the systems within which programmes scale, endure, and reach last-mile communities. This requires more than financial resources: operational capability to coordinate complex actors, risk capital to support experimentation, and patient capital committed beyond conventional funding cycles.  

Several examples illustrated this shift. Ramachandran described how Tata Consultancy Services deploys technology platforms, talent, and execution as its philanthropic offer, reflected in initiatives like Circle for Life, a 600,000-employee volunteering platform. Jasmine Chew of Macquarie Group Foundation described a similar approach to capacity building, investing not only in its grantees but also in the wider network of organisations and stakeholders around them. 

What distinguished many of the examples discussed was not necessarily the scale of funding, but the depth and duration of institutional commitment behind it. Ankit Todi of Mahindra Group described a 15-year agroforestry programme that now sustains participating farmers without further philanthropic support, while Nuriya Ansari of Bharti Airtel Foundation pointed to continued educational investments even when Airtel’s share price had fallen to ₹20. In both cases, the emphasis was less on programme delivery than on building capabilities and systems that could endure beyond philanthropic funding itself. 

This systems orientation also requires capital willing to absorb risks that markets cannot yet price and governments may not yet be prepared to underwrite. Todi described philanthropy providing first-loss guarantees and technical support in climate technologies, carrying early-stage innovation until commercial capital becomes viable. Wen Yi of Johnson & Johnson highlighted a different form of risk-bearing through investments in community health workforces, backing nurses not only as service providers but as advisors, leaders and frontline innovators embedded within local systems. 

The discussion also highlighted the growing prominence of corporate foundations as institutions that blur traditional boundaries between donor, implementer, and convenor. Combining mission orientation with access to corporate capabilities, they can align actors across sectors around shared outcomes. Several speakers suggested that this reflects broader institutional realities across Asia, where governments remain central to service delivery while large business groups often possess implementation capability, geographic reach and public legitimacy that extend beyond their commercial operations. In this context, the comparative advantage of corporate philanthropy lies less in funding isolated interventions than in helping align the actors responsible for delivering outcomes at scale. 

Two implications follow from this. The first is a shift from funder to co-creator, with corporates increasingly participating in the design of solutions rather than solely supporting programmes developed by others. As Ramachandran observed, corporates are becoming “co-creators of national outcomes.” The second is a shift in how impact is understood. Success depends less on programme completion than on whether evidence, capabilities and partnerships become embedded within larger systems. As Ansari noted, governments do not adopt programmes; they adopt evidence.

The discussion raises questions on legitimacy, accountability, and local ownership. The capabilities that corporate philanthropy increasingly brings- convening power, technical expertise and long-term engagement- can accelerate progress, but they also increase the responsibility to strengthen local institutions rather than displace them, while remaining responsive to local realities.  

Ultimately, the panel suggested that the future of Asian corporate philanthropy is a deeper understanding of the capabilities they can contribute beyond capital. Given the Asian context, the test is not whether philanthropy sustains programmes indefinitely, but whether the capabilities, evidence, and partnerships it creates become embedded within the systems responsible for delivering outcomes.