How The Chronicle Compiled Its Annual Survey of Corporate Giving

The Chronicle of Philanthropy’s annual survey on corporate giving is based on information provided

by companies ranked according to their annual revenue in Fortune magazine’s current Fortune 500.

The Chronicle asked the 150 biggest companies in the Fortune 500 to provide figures on their charitable giving in the 2004, 2005, and 2006 fiscal years, and to submit each company foundation’s informational tax return for the most recent fiscal year available. Information was obtained from 82 companies.

Like all foundations, corporate foundations are required by law to make available to the public the tax returns they file with the Internal Revenue Service.

However, companies are not required to disclose details about money they distribute from their corporate-giving, marketing, or other departments.

Thirty-three companies declined to respond to the survey. Several businesses said they do not participate in surveys as a matter of corporate policy, while others said they did not have sufficient staff available to complete the questionnaire.

One company, WellPoint, declined this year because it was in the midst of a merger with Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield, but indicated it would participate next year.

The Effect of Mergers

The Chronicle survey asked companies for information on cash and product donations by the company itself, including subsidiaries, and for gifts of cash and products by the company foundation to charities in the United States and abroad.

The survey results do not include paid time off that some companies give employees so they may volunteer at charities, money raised by employees themselves, or money from companies’ programs to match the gifts of their employees.

Readers should proceed cautiously as they attempt to interpret the findings of this survey.

Comparing data from year to year and company to company can be difficult because some companies did not provide complete data. Several companies were unable to provide donations by affiliates, while others could provide figures solely for giving by their corporate foundation.

For example, two businesses, the Walt Disney Company and Procter & Gamble, appear to have significant changes in their giving from 2004 to 2005.

Disney was unable to provide a figure for products donated in 2005, while Procter & Gamble could not specify this number for 2004, which explains the 98-percent decline at Disney and the 353-percent increase at Procter & Gamble.

Readers should also take note of changes within a single company from year to year that would affect the data it provided to The Chronicle, such as the loss of subsidiaries, mergers, or a change in accounting practices.

Such changes could also affect the percentage of giving last year compared with the previous year’s pretax profits.

For example, J.P. Morgan Chase & Company updated its 2004 data to reflect its merger with Bank One during that year. Federated Department Stores expects its August 2005 acquisition of May Department Stores will increase its figures in the future, but in this year’s figures, it reported information solely for Federated.

Data for the telecommunications company Sprint for 2005 and 2006 are not easily comparable because of the August 2005 merger with Nextel; the amount Sprint Nextel said it gave in donated products was largely given by Nextel.

Two mergers this spring may affect 2006 giving figures, but are not reflected in The Chronicle’s survey. ConocoPhillips acquired Burlington Resources and its charitable foundation in March, and Duke Energy merged with Cinergy Corporation in April.

The Chronicle also received data from one company that ultimately was not included in the analysis on corporate giving.

Dell Computer Corporation, in Round Rock, Tex., which ranks No. 25 on the Fortune 500, was able to provide information solely on donations by its corporate foundation, which the foundation said did not present a full picture of Dell’s giving from its other divisions.

Dell transferred $2.4-million to its corporate foundation in both 2004 and 2005. The foundation made grants of $1.8-million in 2004 and $2.6-million in 2005.

Disaster Relief

The Chronicle survey also asked companies to detail how much they gave to organizations providing relief and recovery aid after the tsunamis in Southeast Asia in December 2004 and Hurricane Katrina in late August of last year. Thirty-eight companies gave $1-million or more for tsunami relief in the 2005 fiscal year, for a total of about $231-million in cash and products.

Forty-six companies, some of which also gave to tsunami relief, gave about $260-million in cash and products in response to Katrina, the survey found.

Two-thirds (about 65 percent) of the tsunami giving by those companies came in the form of products, while two-thirds (about 67 percent) of Katrina giving came in the form of cash, the survey found.

As the 2005 fiscal year is complete, this year’s survey is able to provide a fuller picture of tsunami relief by the nation’s biggest companies. Because of the timing of Hurricane Katrina, many companies did not contribute to relief efforts in their 2005 fiscal year. To show the fullest possible portrait of corporate philanthropy to aid hurricane victims, The Chronicle asked companies to provide their Katrina-relief donations to date.

The following 67 companies either 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:

Abbott Laboratories (Abbott Park, Ill.)

Amerada Hess Corporation (New York)

American Electric Power (Columbus, Ohio)

American International Group (New York)

AmerisourceBergen Corporation (Chesterbrook, Pa.)

AMR Corporation (Dallas-Fort Worth Airport)

Archer-Daniels-Midland Company (Decatur, Ill.)

AutoNation (Fort Lauderdale, Fla.)

Berkshire Hathaway (Omaha)

Cardinal Health (Dublin, Ohio)

Caremark Rx (Nashville)

CBS Corporation (New York)

Cendant Corporation (New York)

Comcast Corporation (Philadelphia)

Computer Sciences Corporation (El Segundo, Calif.)

ConAgra Foods (Omaha)

Delphi Corporation (Troy, Mich.)

Delta Air Lines (Atlanta)

Electronic Data Systems Corporation (Plano, Tex.)

Emerson (St. Louis)

Exelon Corporation (Chicago)

Express Scripts (St. Louis)

FedEx Corporation (Memphis)

General Dynamics Corporation (Falls Church, Va.)

Georgia-Pacific Corporation (Atlanta)

Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company (Akron, Ohio)

Halliburton Company (Houston)

HCA (Nashville)

Hewlett-Packard Company (Palo Alto, Calif.)

Ingram Micro (Santa Ana, Calif.)

International Paper Company (Stamford, Conn.)

Johnson Controls (Milwaukee)

Kmart Corporation (Troy, Mich.)

Lear Corporation (Southfield, Mich.)

Liberty Mutual Insurance Company (Boston)

Loews Corporation (New York)

Lowe’s Companies (North Wilkesboro, N.C.)

Lyondell Petrochem Company (Houston)

Manpower (Milwaukee)

Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company (Springfield)

May Department Stores Company (St. Louis)

McDonald’s Corporation (Oak Brook, Ill.)

MCI (Ashburn, Va.)

Medco Health Solutions (Franklin Lakes, N.J.)

News Corporation (New York)

Northrop Grumman Corporation (Los Angeles)

Plains All American Pipeline (Houston)

Premcor (Old Greenwich, Conn.)

Publix Super Markets (Lakeland, Fla.)

Raytheon Company (Waltham, Mass.)

Rite Aid Corporation (Camp Hill, Pa.)

SBC Communications (San Antonio)

Sears, Roebuck and Company (Hoffman Estates, Ill.)

Sysco Corporation (Houston)

Teachers Insurance & Annuity Association College Retirement Equities Fund (New York)

Tech Data Corporation (Clearwater, Fla.)

Travelers Property Casualty Corporation (Hartford, Conn.)

Tyson Foods (Springdale, Ark.)

UAL Corporation (Elk Grove Township, Ill.)

United States Steel (Pittsburgh)

UnitedHealth Group (Minnetonka, Minn.)

Valero Energy Corporation (San Antonio)

Viacom (New York)

Visteon Corporation (Van Buren Township, Mich.)

Walgreen Company (Deerfield, Ill.)

WellPoint (Indianapolis)

Wyeth (Madison, N.J.)

The Chronicle’s annual survey of corporate giving was conducted by Noelle Barton and Candie Jones.