America's most generous companies

Corporate giving programs are a big deal these days. Large companies gave 5.1% more to charity in 2008 than in 2007, on average, even though the recession officially began in December 2007.

This isn't that surprising. During tough times, reputation is everything. A recent survey by Boston College's Center for Corporate Citizenship and the Hitachi Foundation found that 70% of senior executives considered reputation the No. 1 driver behind their companies' corporate citizenship efforts. At the biggest companies, 82%. It's no wonder chief executive officers now directly lead the corporate citizenship agendas at three out of four corporations, as that same survey also found.

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Wal-Mart (nyse: WMT) was the largest donor of all of them. It gave US$320 million in cash to charity in 2008. That's enough to give everyone in New York City US$38.

Bank of America (nyse: BAC) and Exxon Mobil (nyse: XOM) ranked second and third in total cash giving. They handed out US$215 million and $188 million, respectively. Altogether, the top 10 givers contributed US$1.67 billion to charities.

That's a lot of green, but those tended to be the biggest companies, too. So we measured true generosity by comparing total giving in cash and products during 2008 to total profits from 2007.

By that measure, Merck & Company (nyse: MRK) was the most generous. It gave away US$821 million in cash and products in 2008. That was equal to 24.4% of its 2007 profits. Generous indeed.

In fact, drug and biotechnology companies took five of the top 10 slots when ranked this way. The other four are Pfizer (nyse: PFE) (20.4%), Abbott Laboratories (nyse: ABT) (10.1%), Bristol-Meyers Squibb (10.0%), and Eli Lilly and Company (nyse: LLY) (9.0%).

Of course, drug companies tend to have products that are desperately needed in struggling areas. Of the US$821 million Merck gave, only $55 million was in cash—and that was 11.3% less cash than the company gave in 2007. Pfizer gave even more, $1.9 billion, and just $76 million of that was cash.

Our rankings are based on data compiled by The Chronicle of Philanthropy, the trade journal for nonprofit organizations. The Chronicle researched and surveyed 196 of the biggest companies, by revenues, in America.

In Pictures: America's Most Generous Companies (Percentage of Profits Donated)

 

In Pictures: America's Corporations That Gave The Most (Total Cash Donated)