June 15, 2006 | Read Time: 3 minutes
Two new studies shed light on corporate giving and how Americans view it:
-
Corporate giving jumped by 14 percent in 2005, to $8.4-billion, according to a survey of 62 big companies.
-
Americans say they are more impressed by how a company treats its workers than by how much it gives.
The survey on the amount corporations contributed, conducted by the Committee to Encourage Corporate Philanthropy, in New York, found that the median amount donated rose from $33.4-million in 2004 to $38.2-million in 2005, while giving per employee increased from $670 to $685, despite a 9-percent increase in the median number of employees.
The 14-percent increase tracked the median increases in the companies’ revenues (17 percent) and pretax profits (15 percent), the committee said.
The committee, made up of corporate chief executives and chairmen, surveyed 91 big companies that gave a total of $10-billion in 2005 — more than half of all corporate philanthropy in the United States. It used information from 62 companies that had submitted data in 2004 for its comparative findings.
Some of the increased giving came from donations to help victims of last year’s Gulf Coast hurricanes, with 86 companies reporting they had contributed a total of more than $300-million.
Their median contribution was $2.1-million — double the $1-million median contribution for victims of the South Asian tsunamis reported by 62 companies in 2004, the committee said.
Eighty-seven percent of all companies surveyed in 2005 said they had at least one formal volunteer program, with 44 percent offering paid time off to employees who volunteer.
The committee said 87 of the companies surveyed were members of the Fortune 1,000 or Global 500 list of high-revenue companies, including corporate giants such as American Express, General Electric, and Wal-Mart Stores.
Helping Workers
In a separate survey, Americans said they were more impressed by companies’ treatment of their employees than by their philanthropy.
Asked to say what “corporate social responsibility” meant to them, the greatest number of respondents — 27 percent — said companies should be committed to their employees. Only 3 percent said they should make more charitable donations.
The poll of 800 adults, designed to assess the way consumers view corporate social responsibility, was conducted by the National Consumers League, in Washington, and Fleishman-Hillard, a public-relations company in St. Louis.
Seventy-six percent of those polled said they strongly or somewhat agreed that a company should place salary and wage increases above making charitable contributions. Only 31 percent said a company’s philanthropy was extremely or very influential when they decided what to buy, compared with 83 percent who said that about employee safety.
“Established definitions of [corporate social responsibility], for the most part, have focused largely on environmental concerns and philanthropic giving as top priorities,” a report on the poll said. “However, our survey found that average Americans have different priorities.”
Americans don’t discount a company’s giving entirely, however. Fifty-three percent said it was extremely or very important that companies make donations to charities that are relevant to their businesses.
A summary of the results of the corporate-giving survey is available online at http://www.corporatephilanthropy.org.
The report on the poll on corporate responsibility is available at http://www.csrresults.com.
