Pre-investment evaluations by South African big businesses and state-owned enterprises (SOEs) continue to follow western urban approaches to evaluate the prospect of their donations, empowerment initiatives or future investments in rural municipalities. The gap of knowledge is in the approach to guide and encourage big businesses and SOEs to invest in South African rural municipalities. This study was an attempt to fill that gap. The objective of this study is to propose an adapted model that is informed by the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework and Institutional Theory's perspectives to guide and influence future South African rural municipalities' pre-investment evaluations by big businesses and SOEs with the view to sustain rural livelihoods. The study employed a qualitative research methodology. In line with the interpretative paradigm, a Social Network Analysis (SNA), together with one-on-one interviews, were chosen as re