Branding Corporate Philanthropy

Marx (1999) reported that 96% of firms rate a favorable company image as either an important or extremely important outcome of their philanthropic investments. The fact that corporate philanthropy offers marketing opportunities has not been lost on firms, which explains why the responsibility for philanthropic initiatives most often resides within Marketing/PR departments (Brammer and Millington 2003). Far from benevolent, it has been suggested that corporate philanthropy should be viewed as a marketing investment. In fact it has been suggested that, “corporate philanthropy is about marketing, not philanthropy” (Welsh 1999, p. 24). And, while some companies have enjoyed benefits such as: increased sales and higher sale prices (e.g., Mohr, Webb and Harris 2001) from their philanthropic efforts, many firms have failed to realize any strategic gain from involvement in philanthropy (Porter and Kramer 2002). In part, the poor and/or negative return on corporate philanthropy can be attributed to the sheer number of companies looking to leverage their philanthropic efforts (Smith 1994), with over 85% of U.S. companies now involved in some form of corporate philanthropy (Higgins 2002).