How the Chronicle’s Annual Survey of Corporate Giving Was Compiled

By Noelle Barton

The Chronicle of Philanthropy’s annual survey of corporate giving is compiled from information provided by many of the nation’s biggest companies, based on annual revenue, as ranked in Fortune magazine’s current Fortune 500.

The Chronicle asked the 150 biggest businesses on the list to provide information on their charitable giving in the 2006, 2007, and 2008 fiscal years. Those with company foundations were asked to send their most recent available informational tax return as well. Eighty-five companies provided information.

The law requires that corporate foundations make public their Form 990-PF, the annual report they and other grant makers file with the Internal Revenue Service. However, companies are not required to include on those returns information on money distributed from their corporate-giving, marketing, or other departments.

Thirty-one companies declined to complete a Chronicle survey: Some said they do not participate in surveys, while others cited a shortage of staff members to respond. General Dynamics Corporation, in Falls Church, Va., said it does not disclose data about corporate philanthropy. Sunoco, in Philadelphia, has been a regular survey participant but is undergoing a transition and said it would participate again in the future.

Interpreting the Data

The Chronicle survey collected information on cash and product donations by companies and their affiliates, as well as gifts of cash and products by those companies’ foundations, to charities in the United States and abroad.

Not included among details in the survey results are data on paid time off that some companies give workers so they may volunteer, money raised by employees, or money from company programs that match workers’ charitable gifts.

Readers should use caution when interpreting the data in The Chronicle’s report.

Some companies were unable to provide complete data, providing figures for giving only by the corporate foundation or headquarters, excluding affiliates.

For this reason and others, comparing data between companies and in different years can be misleading.

Two companies — Target, in Minneapolis, and the Walt Disney Company, in Burbank, Calif. — say they do not keep track of whether gifts are in cash or products, so The Chronicle was not able to publish separate figures on each type of giving.

Target was able to provide cash-giving figures for its company foundation.

The loss of subsidiaries, mergers, or changes in accounting practices may affect data within a company from year to year. Altria Group, in Richmond, Va., spun off a subsidiary in 2007 — Kraft Foods — so comparing figures from 2006 and 2007 for charitable giving and profits is difficult.

Two companies — J.C. Penney, in Dallas, and UAL Corporation, in Elk Grove Village, Ill. — provided some information to The Chronicle, but no financial details about their charitable giving and thus are not listed in the main table that runs with this special report.

The following 64 companies declined to provide financial information about their corporate philanthropy to The Chronicle, did not respond to repeated requests for data, or could not provide their foundation’s most recent informational tax return:

Amerada Hess Corporation (New York)
American International Group (New York)
AmerisourceBergen Corporation (Chesterbrook, Pa.)
AMR Corporation (Dallas Fort Worth Airport, Tex.)
Apple (Cupertino, Calif.)
Archer-Daniels Midland Company (Decatur, Ill.)
AutoNation (Fort Lauderdale, Fla.)
Berkshire Hathaway (Omaha)
Boeing Company (Chicago)
Capital One Financial Corporation (McLean, Va.)
CHS (Inver Grove Heights, Minn.)
Cigna Corporation (Philadelphia)
Coca-Cola Enterprises (Atlanta)
Comcast Corporation (Philadelphia, Pa.)
Constellation Energy Group (Baltimore)
Countrywide Financial (Calabasas, Calif.)
Delphi Corporation (Troy, Mich.)
Delta Air Lines (Atlanta)
DirecTV Group (El Segundo, Calif.)
Emerson (St. Louis)
Enterprise GP Holdings (Houston)
Fannie Mae (Washington)
FedEx Corporation (Memphis, Tenn.)
General Dynamics Corporation (Falls Church, Va.)
General Motors Corporation (Detroit)
GMAC (Detroit)
Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company (Akron, Ohio)
Google (Mountain View, Calif.)
Hartford Financial Services Group (Conn.)
HCA (Nashville)
Honeywell International (Morristown, N.J.)
Humana (Louisville, Ky.)
Ingram Micro (Santa Ana, Calif.)
International Paper Company (Stamford, Conn.)
J.P. Morgan Chase & Company (New York)
Johnson Controls (Milwaukee)
Liberty Mutual Insurance Company (Boston)
Loews Corporation (New York)
Marathon Oil Corporation (Houston)
McDonald’s Corporation (Oak Brook, Ill.)
McKesson (San Francisco)
Medco Health Solutions (Franklin Lakes, N.J.)
Murphy Oil Corporation (El Dorado, Ark.)
News Corporation (New York)
Occidental Petroleum Corporation (Los Angeles)
Plains All American Pipeline (Houston)
Procter & Gamble Company (Cincinnati)
Publix Super Markets (Lakeland, Fla.)
Rite Aid Corporation (Camp Hill, Pa.)
Safeway (Pleasanton, Calif.)
Sears, Roebuck and Company (Hoffman Estates, Ill.)
State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company (Bloomington, Ill.)
Sunoco (Philadelphia)
Supervalu (Minneapolis)
Sysco Corporation (Houston)
Tech Data Corporation (Clearwater, Fla.)
Tesoro (San Antonio)
Time Warner (New York)
United States Steel (Pittsburgh)
UPS (Atlanta)
Valero Energy Corporation (San Antonio)
Whirlpool Corporation (Benton Harbor, Mich.)
Wyeth (New York)

The survey was compiled by Noelle Barton and Candie Jones, with help from Maria Di Mento.