IMAGINE TSIBA

Our second GlobalGiving report for 2026 is shared as we finalise our financial results and audit for the previous year.  While we continue to IMAGINE a TSIBA full of future possibilities and ask partners to imagine with us, we remain cognisant of the necessity to remain financially sound and to give comfort to donors who kindly chose to invest in us. 

Towards this, the financial commentary of our financial status as will be presented in the 2025 audited financial statements is shared below.

We trust that our partners will find this information valuable, insightful and comforting, in particular  against donations already invested in TSIBA and as contemplation to supporting our work in the years to come. 

Resilience in Pursuit of Financial Sustainability

During the 2025 financial year, TSIBA Education NPC continued to navigate a complex and volatile socio-economic landscape, reinforcing its position as a unique, purpose-driven social enterprise. Operating as a private, not-for-profit higher education institution, TSIBA’s primary mandate remains unchanged: transitioning talented young individuals from at-risk communities from potential economic exclusion into active, value-adding economic citizenship.

Financially, 2025 was a year of consolidation and structural adjustment with the integration of TSIBA Ignition Academy. The organisation recorded a net deficit of ZAR4,626,021 for the year (2024:ZA R4,656,061). Crucially, this deficit does not reflect operational inefficiency or an unsustainable cash drain; rather, it is heavily influenced by necessary non-cash adjustments - primarily a ZAR4,050,552 depreciation charge following investments in campus infrastructure and a legacy provision for bad debts of R395,823. Adjusted for these non-cash provisions, TSIBA’s core underlying operating performance showed significant resilience, achieving an adjusted operational deficit of just ZAR179,647. This reflects strict expenditure discipline and steady momentum in diversifying revenue streams to achieve long-term financial independence.

Income and Revenue Generation: Strengthening the Social Enterprise Model

Total revenue and ad hoc inflows for the period reached ZAR27,678,731, up from ZAR27,462,944 in 2024, representing stable growth despite broader macroeconomic headwinds. Total revenue for the year comprised:

• Donor income: Donor income (including South African and International philanthropic grants, individual giving and B-BEE Skills Development and Socio-Economic partnerships)grew by 9.3% to R18,315,388 (from ZAR16,759,999 in the 2024 financial year). This growth demonstrates continued corporate and institutional donor confidence in TSIBA’s mission, especially considering that the prior year included an additional ZAR1,605,597 in non-monetary (in-kind) support.

• Student fee income: Student fee income increased by 19.6% to ZAR7,270,762 (from ZAR6,081,340 in 2024). In alignment with TSIBA’s fees strategy, every student continues to study under a heavily subsidised fee model based on relative household affordability. This increase indicates a healthy growth in student enrollment and successful implementation of the fee-paying model, including a focus on selection of students with relatively higher affordability thresholds, and minimising student debt risk while safeguarding access for the most vulnerable.

• Commercial income: To buffer against funding volatility, TSIBA successfully expanded its internal revenue-generating activities. Income from venue hire grew to R881,496 (from ZAR704,860 in the previous year), while commercial rental income advanced to ZAR885,696 (from ZAR819,764 in the previous year), establishing a consistent operational income baseline.

 Operating Expenditure: Operational Efficiency and Strategic Reinvestment

Total operating expenses were managed down tightly to ZAR32,304,752 from ZAR32,119,005 in 2024, staying essentially flat despite local inflationary pressures. Operating income comprised:

• Human Capital: Employee costs remained the largest operational investment at ZAR18,546,965 (2024: ZAR17,999,764). This modest 3% increase underscored management's commitment to maintaining premium academic faculty and student support services, while enforcing strict institutional cost-containment.
• Credit Risk Management: A major highlight of the financial year was the dramatic stabilisation of bad debt provisions, which plummeted to ZAR395,823 from a legacy high of ZAR2,511,828 in 2024. This 84.2% reduction is direct evidence of improved student debt controls, clearer financial counselling, and better structural execution of the fee-paying model.
• Strategic Overheads: Offsetting the bad debt savings were intentional operational investments to enhance academic delivery and expand market visibility. IT costs increased to R1,240,759 (2024: R930,278) to strengthen digital education infrastructure, while advertising costs rose slightly to ZAR508,971 (2024: ZAR448,988) to drive student recruitment and corporate partnership pipelines.

Balance Sheet and Capital Structure:

TSIBA's financial position remains solid and debt-free, maintaining a total equity (retained funds) base of ZAR51,379,948 (2024: ZAR56,005,969).

• Asset Base: Non-current assets are dominated by land and building, being the campus at 51 Old Mill Road, Ndabeni, valued at a carrying price of well over ZAR 60 000 000. This world-class campus infrastructure continues to serve as the physical foundation for TSIBA's academic community.
• Liquidity and Net Cash Flows: Cash and cash equivalents closed the year at ZAR1,703,247, down from ZAR3,893,261 in 2024. This contraction was primarily driven by working capital shifts, notably a net outward cash flow from operating activities of ZAR2,190,014. The primary driver was the transfer of excess cash to the TSIBA Education Trust where a better interest rate is earned on endowments held by the Trust. At year end, an amount of ZAR1,608,997 was owed by the TSIBA Education Trust and ZAR530,000 by TSIBA Ignition Academy. The latter was settled in February 2026 and the former balance will remain to be offset against any bridging finance needed. Conversely, trade and other payables rose to ZAR4,553,343 (2024: ZAR3,563,308), reflecting optimisation of supplier credit cycles to preserve cash buffers.

Strategic Outlook:

The 2025 financial statements confirm that TSIBA Education NPC remains a going concern, fully capable of meeting its obligations to current and future students as mandated under Section 53(1)(a) of the South African Higher Education Act.

Looking ahead, management remains focused on balancing financial sustainability with maximum societal impact as we imagine a sustainable future. In 2025, TSIBA achieved exceptional operational resilience and financial stability. Through proactive expense management and optimised collections, leadership successfully safeguarded the institution’s cash reserves against ongoing economic headwinds. Having demonstrated strong capability in protecting assets, managing liquidity, and maintaining operational stability during a challenging period, TSIBA is now well positioned to build on its growing digital and future-focused programme areas to support scalable growth and long-term sustainability.

By tightly managing operational overheads, minimising credit risk, and cultivating diversified commercial and philanthropic partnerships, TSIBA is successfully cushioning its academic mission against donor volatility. The organisation enters the next financial period well-positioned to expand its footprint, continuing to transform high-potential under-resourced youth into active, tax-paying professionals who add real, measurable value to the South African economy.

The first TSIBA GlobalGiving report for 2026 is shared as student registrations for the upcoming academic year are in progress. The particular moment is significant as this year’s registration process is ‘different’ for important reasons. 

Registration 2026 follows progress made on the IMAGINE TSIBA journey reported on in previous reports. As readers of our more recent reports will be aware, after 22 years of operation, the TSIBA leadership has given considerable time in the last year to reflect deeply on imagining and reimagining our relevance and impact into the future. In turn, these reflections have catalysed deliberate activity to position the institution to deliver on these dreams - many of which are evident in this specific moment.

Since inception in 2004, TSIBA has offered accredited academic programs in business administration, including the one-year Higher Certificate in Business Administration, the three-year  Bachelor of Business Administration in Entrepreneurial Leadership and the eighteen-month Postgraduate Diploma in Business Administration. The emphasis on business administration studies across these qualifications has been underpinned by the understanding that ‘administration’ in its broadest definition spans across all business, with the consequence that education in this field will provide a wide range of employment and career opportunities for TSIBA graduates. With a consistent postgraduate employment rate above 90% across these qualifications this education emphasis has proved effective to date.  Notwithstanding, as all education institutions have long been aware, as the world has rapidly digitised with ever growing emphasis on artificial intelligence, it is incumbent upon us to provide education which enables (our) students and graduates to find opportunities in a radically changed context. As this institution has sought to respond, it is pertinent to report significantly increased digital and ‘AI’ learning content into the curriculum of all of the business administration programs referred to above. This has largely been enabled with two key partnerships - one with Digital Skills Africa which offers no-fee access to a range of Cisco Networking Academy courses, and another with AICerts  providing no-fee access to its full range of Artificial Intelligence education certificates for TSIBA students (and staff). To further facilitate these learning opportunities, a digital skills laboratory, fully equipped with necessary education and technology infrastructure has been set up on campus at TSIBA Ndabeni. TSIBA is grateful for the significant funding provided for this initiative primarily by Digital Skills Academy. 

Beyond the above, it is however the realisation of a significant IMAGINE TSIBA milestone that marks registration 2026 as so important. Following a deliberate strategy to provide a relevant academic programme in digital education, and two years of course development, the TSIBA Diploma in Information and Communications Technology (DICT) achieved accreditation from the South African Council of Higher Education in the latter half of 2025. The DICT accreditation formally marks this institution’s entry into the digital education space as an additional pathway into economic citizenship through a programme which equips TSIBA graduates for a new world and a new economy.  As we share this report, the recruitment and marketing of the offering continues at pace and student registrations for the inaugural TSIBA Diploma in Information and Communications Technology are in progress. Moreover, and supporting the institution's entry into accredited higher education digital offerings we are pleased to report funding for up to twenty full DICT scholarships and further funding for the TSIBA Software Tester Certificate qualification as a bridging programme for those aspiring to the DICT but without the required entry  qualifications. The TSIBA entry into the digital education space thus aligns to our impact model of providing access to relevant education programmes for ambitious young people who may not have the academic and financial means to pursue these opportunities. Once again, TSIBA is enormously appreciative of the funding provided to the ASISA Foundation in support of the Diploma in Information and Communications Technology and the Software Tester Certificate qualification.        

Readers of our previous IMAGINE TSIBA reporting will also be aware of our strategic efforts to build and enhance our international offerings through the TSIBA Global office. These offerings refer in particular to our partnerships with  Audiencia University (Nantes, France), the University of North Carolina (USA), B360 Education Partnerships (Switzerland), ULBS (Romania), Rosenheim (Germany), Fontys (Netherlands)  and Northeastern University (Boston, USA).  As registration for the upcoming year, it is pleasing to report  that the largest ever cohort of students from Audencia University are in the process of registration for the first semester of the year. In addition, recent funding from the Romanian Lucian Blaga University in the city of Sibiu will support a student from this institution to join the TSIBA Global semester studies programme. While such partnerships support revenue generation to fund institutional operations, primarily they offer opportunities for students across the world to learn from very different cultural perspectives, to grow academically and to develop networks which span outside of the countries in which students might have been restricted as young adults. 

Towards our further dreams, we report on progress of  three additional imagined initiatives aimed at our future positioning, including:

TSIBA entity integration

In efforts to streamline operations and provide additional education programs TSIBA Education NPC, trading as TSIBA Business School, and the TSIBA Ignition Academy were integrated into a signal entity during the latter half of 2025. The integration provides operational efficiencies as well as the opportunity to expand TSIBA Business School education offerings beyond those offered at higher education level including courses and certificates in Fundamentals of Business Administration and Management, Fundamentals of Project Management,  South African Tax Applications for Small Businesses and the above mentioned Software Tester certificate. 

TSIBA Wilderness experience

An essential component of the TSIBA (leadership) curriculum until the 2020 Covid restrictions and subsequent funding limitations, the TSIBA Wilderness has returned. From a rural base located in the mountains east of Cape Town, the  programme offers first and third year students an opportunity to experience a safe and facilitated wilderness experience with specific outcomes in mind. The opportunity to be outside of and away from home and the ‘noisy’ urban environments in which TSIBA students reside the experience works to enable students to develop of a personal sense of vision, initiative and personal responsibility, with particular emphasis upon a concern for the conservation of the environment, community building, and cross cultural cooperation. Further, given the challenging environment from which many TSIBA students emerge, the Wilderness programme invites the sharing of past experiences towards enabling them to heal, bring awareness of students' own potential to grow, thrive and realise personal dreams, and  encourages them to lead lives with responsibility and integrity. Given TSIBA’s commitment to produce graduates who are purpose-driven and rounded business leaders of the future, the wilderness programme is essential to this goal. We are pleased that this unique element of the TSIBA experience has been imagined back.    

TSIBA campus upgrade 

Efforts to imagine and create a campus to which all TSIBA stakeholders will aspire received a significant enabler through donor advised funding provided to refurbish and upgrade TSIBA Ndabeni campus facilities. The funding provided will address both aesthetic and functional elements of the campus structural infrastructure, providing not only a more beautiful campus at which to study, but one which is comfortable, fully functional for learning and safe.     

Finally, we are pleased to report (unaudited as yet) annual revenue of ZAR 26,448 000 (USD$ 1 603 000) for the 2025 academic year, including ZAR 18 000 000 (USD$ 1 100 000) from South African and International donors (including donations through GlobalGiving). While such donations are imperative for financial and operational sustainability, they are also indicative of the trust our donors place in the work of this institution, and how we might imagine a future for TSIBA and its students and beneficiaries. IMAGINE TSIBA.