The Chronicle’s Survey of Corporate Gifts: How the Research Was Conducted

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 on the Fortune list to provide figures on their charitable giving in the 2005, 2006, and 2007 fiscal years, and to submit each company foundation’s informational tax return for the most recent fiscal year available. Ninety-one companies provided information.

Corporate foundations are required by law to make public their Form 990-PF, the annual report they and other grant makers file with the Internal Revenue Service. But information contained in these returns may not include details about money distributed from a company’s corporate-giving, marketing, or other departments, information that companies are not required to disclose.

Thirty-five companies declined to respond to the survey. Some organizations told The Chronicle that they make it a policy not to participate in surveys, while others cited a lack of staff members to complete the questionnaire. An official from the Amerada Hess Corporation, in New York, went further, saying that the company keeps such information confidential. A representative of the Walgreen Company, in Deerfield, Ill., said that company lawyers advised against participating.

Meanwhile, two companies said they are undergoing transitions and hope to provide information in the future. Dell, in Round Rock, Tex., is working on an effort to track corporate giving more efficiently, and Macy’s, formerly Federated Department Stores, in Cincinnati, said the information requested for this year’s survey covers the period when its staff members were sorting out the results of the company’s acquisition of May Department Stores Company, in St. Louis.

Dollars and Goods

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

Paid time off that some companies give workers so they may volunteer, money raised by employees, or money from companies’ programs to match their workers’ gifts are not among details included in the survey results.

With those details in mind, readers should take care in interpreting the findings of this survey.

Some companies did not provide complete data, including only providing figures for giving by the corporate foundation or headquarters (excluding affiliates), so comparing data from year to year, and company to company, can be difficult.

For example, 2006 was the first year in which MetLife, in New York, reported overseas giving, which is part of the reason its giving from 2005 to 2006 appears to have increased by nearly 13 percent. Also, Tyson Foods, in Springdale, Ark., donated six million pounds of products in 2005, but was unable to estimate a value, so this donation is not reflected in Tyson’s figures.

Several companies do not break down their cash and noncash giving, instead choosing to provide a combined figure for both.

Data within a company from year to year may also be affected by the loss of subsidiaries, mergers, or changes in accounting practices. In many cases, like the mergers of Abbott Laboratories and Guidant; Bank of America and MBNA; and Duke Energy and the Cinergy Corporation, figures provided by survey respondents include corporate giving by the combined entities.

On the other hand, Washington Mutual’s acquisition of Providian Financial Corporation in 2005 has not affected Washington Mutual’s corporate-giving information in this survey, as the company continues to provide information solely on itself and not for the combined entity.

Disaster Giving

This year, The Chronicle continued to collect information on corporate gifts related to Hurricane Katrina recovery and rebuilding efforts. Noncash donations accounted for one-third of the $322.7-million donated for hurricane efforts by 66 companies in the Chronicle’s survey.

More details on companies that donated money and goods in response to Katrina can be found online at http://philanthropy.com

The following 59 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:

Allstate Corporation (Northbrook, Ill.)

Amerada Hess Corporation (New York)

American International Group (New York)

AmerisourceBergen Corporation (Chesterbrook, Pa.)

AMR Corporation (Dallas-Fort Worth Airport)

Apple (Cupertino, Calif.)

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

AutoNation (Fort Lauderdale, Fla.)

Bear, Stearns & Company (Whippany, N.J.)

Berkshire Hathaway (Omaha)

Boeing Company (Chicago)

Cigna Corporation (Philadelphia)

Comcast Corporation (Philadelphia)

Constellation Energy Group (Baltimore)

Countrywide Financial (Calabasas, Calif.)

Dell (Round Rock, Tex.)

Delphi Corporation (Troy, Mich.)

Emerson (St. Louis)

Exelon Corporation (Chicago)

Express Scripts (St. Louis)

FedEx Corporation (Memphis)

General Dynamics Corporation (Falls Church, Va.)

General Motors Corporation (Detroit)

Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company (Akron, Ohio)

Halliburton Company (Houston)

HCA (Nashville)

Ingram Micro (Santa Ana, Calif.)

International Paper Company (Stamford, Conn.)

J.C. Penney Company (Dallas)

Johnson Controls (Milwaukee)

Lear Corporation (Southfield, Mich.)

Lennar Foundation (Miami)

Loews Corporation (New York)

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

Lyondell Petrochem Company (Houston)

Macy’s (Cincinnati)

Marathon Oil Company (Houston)

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

News Corporation (New York)

Northrop Grumman Corporation (Los Angeles)

Occidental Petroleum Corp. (Los Angeles)

PepsiCo (Purchase, N.Y.)

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.)

Supervalu (Minneapolis)

Sysco Corporation (Houston)

Tech Data Corporation (Clearwater, Fla.)

Tesoro (San Antonio)

TJX Companies (Framingham, Mass.)

UAL Corporation (Elk Grove Township, Ill.)

United States Steel (Pittsburgh)

UPS (Atlanta)

Valero Energy Corporation (San Antonio)

Walgreen Company (Deerfield, Ill.)

Wyeth (Madison, N.J.)

The survey on corporate giving was compiled by Noelle Barton and Sam Kean, with assistance from Maria Di Mento.