Environmental, Social & Governance Briefs

80 Years of Corporate Citizenship & Philanthropy Leadership

November 27, 2023

During World War II, American businesses increased their charitable giving to respond to needs on the home front and to support the war effort. The Conference Board – already established as a leader in knowledge-sharing among US firms – started to track these corporate charitable contributions and activities from 1943 onwards. This was a pivotal moment for corporate philanthropy, which was still emerging after being legally recognized in the Internal Revenue Act of 1935. The Conference Board's efforts played a crucial role in legitimizing the field and cemented The Conference Board’s ongoing leadership in corporate citizenship and philanthropy, a mantle it has held for eight decades.

Corporate philanthropy grew quickly post-war, as economic expansion fueled the establishment of major corporate charitable foundations. In 1950 The Conference Board launched one of its early Councils to bring together executives from this emerging profession. The Corporate Contributions Council, as it was called, still exists today as the Corporate Citizenship Leadership Council – bringing together executives from some of the world’s largest corporations to collaborate on pressing societal issues.

Amid social unrest and change in the 1960s and ‘70s, the Committee for Economic Development (CED),  now The Conference Board’s public policy arm, was among the first to recognize the changing “social contract” between business and society. In a landmark 1971 report, CED observed that business was “being asked to assume broader responsibilities to society than ever before and to serve a wider range of human values”. Subsequently, many companies adopted a “strategic” form of philanthropy that aligned business interests and societal needs through a focus on specific issues relevant to their core business.

As corporate philanthropy grew in size and strategic relevance, employee volunteering also reached new heights. In 1993, The Conference Board published Corporate Volunteer Programs: Benefits to Business. The first of its kind, this influential report found that corporate volunteer programs were increasingly being valued for their role in meeting business goals and employee objectives.

By the end of the twentieth century, companies were embracing the notion of “corporate citizenship” that went beyond traditional charitable giving and employee volunteering to address the company’s broader role in society.  A report by The Conference Board in 1999 captured this sensibility, observing that “corporate citizenship as a business has become increasingly global. Companies encounter intensifying competition, and with it, organizational, governing, and technological challenges across national and business cultures... companies increasingly need to consider how best to balance demands for growth against demands from society that widen the primary economic mission of the business enterprise into new areas”.

These “demands from society” widened and intensified further during the opening decades of the twenty-first century. The Conference Board’s approach evolved in tandem, such as launching the Institute for Corporate Citizenship and Philanthropy in 2017 as a focal point for a wide range of Councils and other programs, publications, events, and benchmarking. The institute was later incorporated into The Conference Board’s Governance & Sustainability Center – the leading independent, non-partisan, non-profit think tank in the US focusing on corporate governance, sustainability, and corporate citizenship and philanthropy.

In recent years, a succession of major events – including the COVID-19 pandemic, social and economic upheavals, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the recent humanitarian crisis in Israel and Gaza – has shaped a more challenging and uncertain social, economic, and political environment. Against this global backdrop, the role of corporate citizenship executives has become more complex as they:

• Help their C-suite and boards responsibly navigate multiple, inter-related events, from an economic downturn to social upheaval, the war in Ukraine, the ripple effects from the pandemic, and generative AI.
• Balance the interests of a wide range of stakeholders, while demonstrating an ROI both to the company and society.
• Integrate further into business strategy, which involves new types of internal partnerships with sustainability, HR, and business units, while engaging externally not just with non-profits, but government, academic institutions, and other companies.
• Create value for the business, while remaining true to their values in a polarized and volatile environment.

The Conference Board continues to operate at the forefront of these trends – providing pioneering programs, publications, and more. In recent years, these have addressed critical topics such as the COVID-19 pandemic, racial equality, navigating uncertainty, the future of cities, measuring and reporting on citizenship and philanthropy, natural disasters, innovation and impact investing, citizenship’s return on investment, rural America, and the War in Ukraine.

After 80 years of leadership on corporate citizenship and philanthropy, The Conference Board remains as committed as ever to our mission of supporting our Member companies in addressing their business priorities, while serving a broader public role in helping firms to define and fulfill their evolving role in society. This leadership continued at an in-person Summit in New York on December 5^th, 2023, that took stock of the current state of corporate citizenship in the US and abroad, while providing invaluable context, insights, and guidance to develop and execute the next generation of companies’ corporate citizenship strategies.

The Conference Board will continue to provide Trusted Insights for What’s Ahead^® for all companies as we enter a new era of corporate citizenship.