Environmental, Social & Governance Briefs

Corporate Giving Increases 15 Percent Over Three Years

November 29, 2018

Giving in Numbers: 2018 Edition, published by CECP in association with The Conference Board, has found that total corporate giving increased more than 15 percent over three years to a record $23.8 billion. In addition, top quartile companies are investing nearly 2 percent of pre-tax income in community programs.  

Corporations appear to be more generous, as the growing economy and favorable tax cuts have left some companies with healthy cash reserves. Many have promised to direct a portion to their communities. This year’s survey shows that a number of respondents are living up to that promise.

Other key findings from this year’s survey include:

• Disaster Relief is on the rise Last year’s natural disasters set the pace for increasing companies’ contributions oriented towards Disaster Relief. This program area increased by more than 300 percent in terms of median cash giving in the last three years, as well as in aggregate: 208 percent in terms of total cash giving.
• Deeper impact of grants Companies are seeking deeper impact for their grants through a more strategic distribution of resources. Survey data revealed more companies reducing both the number of grants and recipients but simultaneously increasing the overall size of the remaining grants to pool resources to make a greater impact.
• Measuring societal outcomes and/or impacts became a more widespread practice More companies increased their measurement of societal outcomes and/or impacts of at least one grant: from 81 percent in 2015 to 84 percent in 2017 (in a three-year matched set). Most commonly, companies limited their outcome-measurement efforts to strategic programs. Companies that measured societal outcomes and/or impacts for “priority” grants were able to manage more recipients and more grants compared to those that measured all societal outcomes and/or impacts across all grants. The data also show that companies that measured both societal outcomes and the business value of employee engagement also showed growth in societal investments and employee volunteer participation.
• The employee factor in corporate social engagement grew in value and impact While the offering of employee matching programs continued to grow over the last three years, companies that offered unrestricted matches—“open matching”—matched and donated a higher dollar amount in 2017.
• Resiliency of contributions teams The data show that contributions staff as measured by Full-Time Equivalent (FTEs) continued to increase despite overall companies’ employee headcount cuts. This may be due in part to the exponential support that FTEs provide to their teams when it comes to managing companies’ resources, grants, and relationships with end-recipients, while maximizing internal employee engagement.

Download Giving in Numbers: 2018 Edition for free.