The Chronicle Of Philanthropy

Big companies beefed up their charitable giving last year

Cash giving rose 13% in 2010, after the recession caused a decline of 7.5% in 2009.

When companies add the value of product donations to their cash giving, the figures for 2010 look even stronger. Total giving rose nearly 20%. Seventy-four of the 107 companies surveyed in the Fortune 300 list of largest companies said they expect this year's giving to remain about the same as last year. Twenty-seven expect total giving to increase, while six expect a decrease.

The findings reflect how the shaky economy is challenging grant makers, experts say.

"It's kind of a mixed bag right now," said Mark Shamley, head of the Association of Corporate Contributions Professionals, a trade group in Mt. Pleasant, S.C., that represents company grant makers. "Most companies are just holding steady." He said he expects it will take at least until 2013 for companies to give as much as they did before the recession took hold at the end of 2007.

Among the other findings:

•Cash donations totaled $4.9 billion last year, up 13% from 2009, according to figures provided by 113 companies.

•Wal-Mart's $319.5 million in cash giving was higher than all other companies in the survey. Wal-Mart also is making a commitment in food and other non-cash gifts, pledging to provide $1.75 billion over five years to food banks and other organizations that provide groceries to the poor.

• Goldman Sachs , the investment bank, surged into second place by more than tripling its giving, to $315.4 million.

Other financial companies also posted notable increases as their profits rebounded last year.

Citigroup, which needed a government bailout to survive the downturn, rejoined the list of companies giving more than $100 million in cash. When ranking companies by the combined total of their cash and products, Pfizer topped the list by giving $3 billion in cash and products, followed by Oracle ($2.3 billion) and Merck ($1.1 billion).

Fifty-eight companies increased their foreign giving more than 20% last year, donating $3.8 billion, compared with $3 billion in 2009.

Education Program Gets Mixed Score on Innovation - The Chronicle ...

A new report on preliminary lessons from the Department of Education’s Investing in Innovation, or i3, program suggests that it has successfully promoted school-improvement strategies based on research findings but made only marginal progress in sparking innovation.

Now in its second year , the i3 program provided $650-million in its first year for grants to nonprofits and schools for innovative and proven approaches to improving student achievement.

The report, released this week by Bellwether Education Partners, is based on a survey and interviews with experts, program applicants, and philanthropists.

It says that i3 has heightened the importance of evidence—measuring results to prove that a program is working—particularly among foundations and other organizations that provided money to grant winners. It has also brought increased visibility and support to the grantees.

But this improvement came at a cost. Applicants that were not selected are worried that their reputation has suffered and they could lose private money—and coming close did not appear to help. An exposition sponsored by the Aspen Institute in January to showcase applicants that received high scores produced few new private grants for the organizations that did not win any federal aid.

Moreover, although it successfully emphasized evidence, the i3 program may have stifled proposals that were innovative. Grant winners tended to be organizations with extensive track records in education, including well-known nonprofits like Teach for America and the KIPP Foundation—derided by some as “the usual suspects.”

Meanwhile, for-profit organizations were barred from participating, which probably reduced the number of high-quality applications featuring innovative technology, the report said. The program’s larger grants required expensive experimental and quasi-experimental studies to measure results that few new or small organizations could afford.

Other innovations received mixed reviews.  The Foundation Registry, a Web site launched in 2010 to bring foundations together to share information and pool money for grant winners, drew praise from several participating foundations. One foundation executive said it prompted conversations about how to improve efficiencies through common applications and reporting forms.

It was less popular with grantees, who generally did not credit it with attracting money for their projects. Another Department of Education Web site intended to bring together donors and educational innovators, called the Open Innovation Portal, was criticized on similar grounds.

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