Corporate donations
voluntary donations made by companies
The term corporate donation refers to any financial contribution made by a corporation to another organization that furthers the contributor's own objectives. Two major kinds of such donations deserve specific consideration, charitable as well as political donations.
According to a 2020 study of large United States–based corporations, "6.3 percent of corporate charitable giving may be politically motivated, an amount 2.5 times larger than annual PAC contributions and 35 percent of federal lobbying. Absent of disclosure requirements, charitable giving may be a form of corporate political influence undetected by voters and subsidized by taxpayers."
Charitable donations
Corporations give to charitable causes, either because of the personal convictions of influential leaders within the corporation, or more commonly to help establish the public perception that the corporation is a good corporate citizen.
Types
Corporate charitable giving can be divided into direct cash and non-cash contributions. Direct cash giving comes from corporate headquarters, regional offices, or company sponsored foundations. Examples of direct cash contributions include:
Community grants to support local community efforts or nonprofits – 100% of Fortune 500 companies provide some form of community grant or sponsor at least one fundraising event.
Matching gifts – Corporate donations to nonprofits as a match to employee giving. Approximately 65% of Fortune 500 companies offer these programs.
Volunteer grants – Giving to nonprofits in recognition of employee-volunteer service to that organization.
The public source identifies “Corporate donations” as voluntary donations made by companies. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Corporate, donations and voluntary.
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This entry incorporates text from “Corporate donations” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.