Summer 2007
In This Issue
Mark Your Calendar for the Next SDG Corporate Program...and the Annual Conference!
Corporate Giving that Matters: Achieving Strategic Impact
July 31, 2007
8:30-10:30am
Location: Time Warner Cable, 10450 Pacific Center Court, San Diego, CA 92121
Sponsors: Washington Mutual, AMN Healthcare
Sponsor and Host: Time Warner Cable
Corporate giving can be a crazy job—you are pulled in many directions internally and externally. But hey, it's summertime—why not take a couple of hours for yourself to chat, vent, brainstorm, and share with your SDG compatriots. Our special focus for this facilitated roundtable will be on how to analyze the business and community impact of your corporate giving. This is of course no mean feat given the realities of limited time and dollars. One way to start, though, is to analyze what strategic impact really means for you: what do you want to achieve and how will you know when you have achieved it? Our guest facilitators are corporate giving consultants Nancy and Richard Walch of Walch Consulting LLC. Based in Southern California, Nancy and Richard have more than 25 years of experience coaching the development of corporate giving programs. Their clients have included Nissan North America, Southern California Edison, Edison International, A.G. Edwards & Sons, Inc. and Avery Dennison. Please join us: RSVP today!
SPECIAL INVITATION: We invite those of you who are new to SDG to arrive at 8:00a.m. in order to hear a bit more about our organization, meet with members of our Corporate Committee, and receive some personalized attention.
SDG Annual Conference
Strategic Grantmaking: Inspiration to Implementation
November 8, 2007
Location: NTC Promenade
Don't miss our most popular event of the year! Annual Conference committee members Jennifer Arrowsmith (QUALCOMM, Inc.) and JR Raines (Union Bank of California) are planning a special Corporate breakout session. The conference plenary speakers are Peter Hero, Senior Advisor and former President of Silicon Valley Community Foundation, and Albert Ruesga, Vice President of The Meyer Foundation and chair of Hispanics in Philanthropy (and philanthropy blogger). RSVP today!
Sponsorships are now available: sponsors already signed on include Washington Mutual, QUALCOMM Inc., WebMD Health Foundation, Fieldstone Foundation, Jewish Community Foundation, McCarthy Family Foundation, San Diego National Bank, The Patricia and Christopher Weil Family Foundation,
and the Sorkin Family Fund. Click here (pdf) to download a sponsorship form.
SDBJ Supplement on Corporate Philanthropy: Feedback Please!
As you know, San Diego Business Journal, San Diego Grantmakers, and Volunteer San Diego worked together to launch this special supplement on local corporate philanthropy. Published on May 28, 2007, the piece highlights the contributions of current corporate giving and employee volunteer programs and will hopefully inspire more companies to get involved. To download the supplement (large pdf), click here. If you would like to receive a hard copy, contact us.
We would like to hear your feedback on this first-time endeavor! Please take this brief survey to let us know your thoughts and ideas for improving the supplement in future years.
Corporate Philanthropy Up in 2006?
Research by the Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy
(pdf) suggests that corporate giving increased 4.7 percent on average for top companies in 2006--even without a major natural disaster to fuel additional giving. Overall, giving did not increase for all companies. The companies that gave more are mostly service-based, and were able to increase giving due to strong profits and improvements in measurement practices tracking gifts. Companies for which giving decreased mainly consist of manufacturing firms that reported a decline in non-cash (in-kind) gifts. CECP also reported that international corporate giving is on the rise. As a percentage of total giving, philanthropy to overseas beneficiaries increased from 10 percent in 2004 to 13.5 percent in 2006. Click here and here for more information.
Giving by corporate foundations rose to $4.2 billion in 2006 and is expected to rise again in 2007, according to the Foundation Center's most recent Key Facts on Corporate Foundations.
However, Giving USA 2007, a publication of Giving USA Foundation researched and written by the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University, reports that corporate gifts declined 7.6% in 2006, to $12.72 billion. This is largely due to 2005's extraordinary disaster-related giving. Exempting these gifts, corporate giving is estimated to have increased 1.5% in 2006.
Corporate Giving Statistics
The data above represent the preliminary results of CECP's Giving in Numbers study. The full report from last year, Giving in Numbers, 2006 edition (pdf), gives a more comprehensive picture of corporate giving in 2005. 103 companies completed the online survey, including 40 of the Fortune 100 companies. Some key findings:
- Total contributions amounted to $10.5 billion in cash and product giving.
- Median total giving = $28.95 million
- Median total giving as a percentage of Revenue = 0.14%
- Median total giving as a percentage of pre-tax profit = 0.86%
- Median total giving per employee = $636
100 Best Corporate Citizens 2007
The 100 Best Corporate Citizens list takes a systematic approach to assessing the social and environmental characteristics of a good corporate citizen. The list is drawn from approximately 1,100 publicly held U.S. companies. Now in its eighth year, the 100 Best Corporate Citizens list was developed by Business Ethics magazine but now has been published in CRO magazine. Click here for more information and to view the full list (which includes SDG member Wells Fargo!).
On a related note, Perla Ni of the Stanford Social Innovation Review Blog suggests that there should also be a list of America's Least Philanthropic Companies. Her post and the many responses to it show the difficulties of recognizing the different types of corporate philanthropy and community involvement.
Corporate Volunteering Commitment Attracts Young Employees
Companies that encourage and help their employees volunteer their professional skills to nonprofit organizations have an advantage when it comes to recruiting Gen Y talent, a new study by Deloitte & Touche USA finds. According to the company's 2007 Volunteer IMPACT Survey of Generation Y (pdf), 62 percent of respondents said they would prefer to work for companies that give them opportunities to contribute their talents to nonprofits, while only 39 percent of Gen Y employees said their companies currently provide these types of opportunities. In the survey, 80 percent of respondents identified themselves as volunteers, and 97 percent said companies should offer their employees opportunities to volunteer their work-related skills or talents to nonprofits. Click here for more information.
More Corporate News and Resources
Board of Boards CEO Conference Report
On National Corporate Philanthropy Day, February 26, 2007, thirty-five top CEOs convened to discuss Imperatives for Corporations Investing in Society. This report offers insight into the key issues and best practices shared by the CEOs in attendance. To download a free copy (pdf), click here.
"The Economics of Giving" Article
This Success magazine article by Adam Stone outlines different approaches to giving by different kinds of companies.
New Report: Banking on Philanthropy: Impact of Bank Mergers on Charitable Giving
Although many expect bank mergers to result in significant decreases in charitable giving, the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy's (NCRP) recent report, Banking on Philanthropy: Impact of Bank Mergers on Charitable Giving, concludes otherwise. Philanthropy dollars of seven major financial institutions have actually quadrupled since the late-1980s following a wave of national bank mergers.
On the Web
The National Community Reinvestment Coalition announced the launch of the Community Investment Network website. The site, which is managed by the Governance and Accountability Institute, is a comprehensive hub of news, research, and resources on community investing.
The Business & Human Rights Resource Centre launched its re-designed website, building on its reputation for neutrality in linking to stories exposing corporate human rights abuses and best practices, as well as inviting companies to present their side of the story. The revised site enhances the ability to search human rights records of over 3,600 companies, and also makes it easier to access its special resources--which include the homepage for UN Special Representative on Business and Human Rights John Ruggie.
Corporate Community Involvement Conference
July 26-27, 2007
Chicago, IL
Organized by The Conference Board and The Public Affairs Council, this conference is designed to serve the needs of corporate grantmaking and related area executives.
Business for Social Responsibility (BSR) Conference
October 23-26, 2007
San Francisco, CA
The plenary speakers for this conference, "Designing a Sustainable Future," include:
- Vinod Khosla – Founding CEO of Sun Microsystems and Partner, Khosla Ventures
- Dr. Gerd Leipold – Executive Director, Greenpeace International
- Sir Michael Rake – International Chairman KPMG
CECP Conference Materials
Allison Kelly and Jennifer Arrowsmith of QUALCOMM and Dean Thorp from Wells Fargo Bank recently attended the CECP conference. Click here (pdf) to access some of what they learned and be sure to ask them if you would like to hear more about this organization.
NCG Conference Materials
Northern California Grantmakers' Corporate Philanthropy Institute occurred in May and featured great speakers, including Jed Emerson, Mark Kramer, and Steve Rochin. Click here for the conference page, which includes the speakers' presentations and additional resources.
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