Margaret Coady
Director
Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy

August 25, 2010 --– Earlier this week, The Wall Street Journal published an Op-Ed piece, "The Case Against Corporate Social Responsibility" written by Aneel Karnani, associate professor of strategy at the University of Michigan's Stephen M. Ross School of Business.  Based on our organization’s ongoing contact with over 150 top business CEOs on this issue, it is our view that the article does not fully reflect the current mindset of corporate leaders on whether and when it is appropriate for a profit-maximizing entity to involve itself in solving tough social issues, such as poverty.  With this response, we share our Committee’s direct experience in working with these leaders on this issue, as well as quotations from CEOs such as Mike Duke, Ron Williams, Jim Rogers and others that illuminate their thinking.

New Tool for Deciding Which Social Issue to Address:
The “Issue Ripeness” Map

 

 

Margaret Coady
Director
Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy

August 18, 2010 --– In an environment in which increasingly urgent and complex social issues run concurrently with limited corporate funding and other resources, how should companies decide where to focus philanthropically?

In a new report featuring research and CEO interviews conducted with McKinsey & Company titled Shaping the Future: Solving Social Problems through Business Strategy, CECP presents an “issue ripeness” map (found on page 22) to help companies decide where to engage for maximum business and social gain. 

CECP’s Corporate Giving Standard and The Chronicle of Philanthropy Survey

 

 

Alison P. Rose
Manager, Standards and Measurement
Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy

August 10, 2010 --Yesterday, The Chronicle of Philanthropy and USA Today released their annual survey on 2009 corporate giving. As CECP mentioned in last year’s Giving in Numbers report, corporate giving professionals can benefit from the research of multiple organizations, provided those professionals are equipped to understand the differences among methods and findings. In the spirit of collaboration, CECP offers this comparison of the high level findings of CECP’s Corporate Giving Standard (CGS) data, which were released in early June, and the new report by The Chronicle/USA Today. CECP’s full analysis of 2009 corporate giving will be available in the Annual Edition of Giving in Numbers, scheduled for release in the fall of 2010.

Download CECP’s first look at 2009 findings » (2 page PDF)

Charles H.  Moore
Executive Director
Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy

August 2, 2010 -- Recently, two major newspapers have run opinion columns which our organization, the Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy (CECP), believes represent outdated perspectives on the role of business in society.

Jamie White, in a July 21 Wall Street Journal editorial titled “When Corporate Theft is Good” stipulates that corporate philanthropy is tantamount to “stealing shareholders money,” and the Washington Post’s Chrystia Freeland, in the July 18 editorial “What’s BP’s Responsibility?” blamed the “cult of social responsibility” for the gulf oil spill and financial crisis. Both take the stance of Milton Friedman in asserting that the purpose of business is narrowly business, to make the maximum profit. Freeland goes a step farther by saying that the interests of business and society are not aligned, calling for government to step in as regulators, keeping the “perfectly proper corporate greed” from harming the larger community.