Corporates Move to 'Recovery' Philanthropy

Corporate planning for community involvement has moved out of crisis mode and into a recovery mindset, according to an annual survey of corporate giving strategies of U.S. companies by The Conference Board, a global business research and membership association.

The report — The 2010 Philanthropy Agenda: Is the Pressure Easing? — is based on responses from 114 companies to a December 2009-January 2010 survey about planned changes to their corporate giving programs.

Carolyn Cavicchio, senior research associate with The Conference Board says last year, due to the recession, it was all about cuts but this year, the dollar spend for contributions has continued to decline, but at a far less accelerated pace.

More than three-quarters of respondents said that they would make no recession-driven changes to their 2010 corporate giving programs. Strategic priorities such as aligning more closely with business needs, rather than economic concerns, are driving priority-setting in contributions.

Twenty percent of companies said they would reduce their giving budgets in 2010, compared with 53 percent in 2009. In addition, only four percent of companies plan to reduce the size of their giving staff, compared with 18 percent in 2009.

As in 2009, most companies surveyed are increasing the resources devoted to volunteering programs, and event sponsorship will see the most decreases.

In terms of focus areas, international development, STEM education (science, technology, engineering and math) and environment/sustainability will see the greatest resource increases. Capital campaigns and arts/culture will lose the most.

Other key findings:

• Just six percent of companies surveyed plan to reduce their contributions-related administrative budgets, compared with 34 percent last year.
• Only 11 percent of those surveyed said their companies would make fewer grants in 2010, compared with 34.8 percent in 2009.
• Only eight percent said they would make smaller grants, compared with 20.9 percent last year.

Download the executive summary at www.conference-board.org