What is involved in ranking America's top 50 corporate givers? Should it be a list of the top money givers, or do companies really give more when they give a higher percentage of their profits? Worth magazine decided to go with both criteria when recognizing this year's top corporate givers -- and found out that giving more doesn't mean the same things to all companies.
For its survey of the country's top 500 companies, as measured by revenue, Worth -- partnering with the Council on Economic Priorities -- asked each company to supply numbers for corporate giving and pre-tax earnings from the years 1996 and 1998.
By calculating the value of cash and non-cash gifts from those records, Worth put together a list -- accounting for a total of $1.8 billion in charitable giving -- of the Top 50 Givers in the country. The top five include some of the largest corporations in the country:
- $92 million from the Bank of America;
- $75 million from General Motors;
- $67.4 million from Johnson & Johnson;
- $60 million from Philip Morris;
- and $59.2 million from General Electric.
Recognizing that large donations should be compared to a company's earnings, however, Worth has also compiled a list of the country's Top 50 Profit Sharers, including those companies that gave the highest percentage of pre-tax earnings. Of the top five givers in the first list, only two -- General Motors and Johnson & Johnson -- are among the top profit sharers.
The top profit sharer on the list, Champion International, gave $8 million dollars last year, but the percentage of the company's earnings was eight times that of the Bank of America.
The top five Profit Sharers in America, along with percentages of pre-tax earnings, according to Worth, are:
- 6.61 percent from Champion International;
- 4.84 percent from Humana
- 4.82 percent from Owens Corning;
- 4.39 percent from Dole Food;
- and 4.18 from Times Mirror
Dayton Hudson was the only company to make the Top 10 in both lists.
Full text of Worth's commentary on corporate giving, as well as details of how the lists were calculated, is available at:
http://www.worth.com/articles/Z9912F03.html
