After Katrina, the Public Wants Companies to Help the Poor

U.S. companies had donated at least $379-million in cash as of last month to Hurricane Katrina relief and recovery efforts, as part of one of the largest philanthropic responses from the corporate world to a disaster, says the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Center for Corporate Citizenship, in Washington.

Aside from cash gifts, businesses have also given $156-million in products and raised $183-million from customers for emergency needs, says the center.

As the response to Katrina shifts from immediate relief to rebuilding, a majority of Americans want corporations to continue their disaster efforts, suggests a second new survey, published by Cone, a Boston company that helps businesses and charities form marketing deals.

Eighty-seven percent of Americans said they expect companies to play an “important role” in rebuilding New Orleans and other parts of the Gulf Coast, and 53 percent said companies should help with reconstruction until “affected areas and people are thriving again,” according to the Cone report, which polled 1,044 adults nationwide last month.

Among the Cone study’s other findings:

• Sixty-two percent of those surveyed said companies are more effective than the U.S. government at responding to disasters.
• Seventy-seven percent said they are “very likely” or “somewhat likely” to donate money or noncash items to nonprofit organizations working in the Gulf Coast, while 54 percent said they would volunteer for a company-sponsored relief effort.
• In the wake of the hurricane, more Americans are identifying antipoverty efforts, programs for youth, and housing as causes they would like companies to support. For example, Cone found that 10 percent more respondents — from 65 percent in a survey conducted last year to 75 percent — said poverty was a social issue they want corporations to help with.

Disaster response aside, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce found that a majority of company executives continue to feel that corporate citizenship, including philanthropy, is important for the business world. Eighty-one percent of corporate leaders said corporate-citizenship efforts need to be a “priority” for companies.

But the survey, which was commissioned by the chamber and the Center for Corporate Citizenship at Boston College, also discovered that executives are more likely to talk about good corporate practices than to actually commit to them.

For example, 25 percent of respondents to a 2003 survey said businesses should play a role in alleviating poverty. But in the 2005 study, which polled 1,189 business executives, 13 percent of those surveyed said their companies are heavily involved in such anti poverty work.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce survey is available online at http://www.uschamber.com/ccc.

The Cone survey is available on the company’s Web site, http://coneinc.com.