Corporate philanthropy in the UK: altruistic giving or marketing communications weapon?

Abstract

Controversy surrounds the issue of whether corporate giving should be regarded as pure altruism (with no expectation of reward) or as a hard-headed business investment subject to normal commercial rules. Some research has suggested that UK companies are neither managing their charitable activities professionally nor capitalizing on the marketing opportunities that corporate philanthropy (CP) provides. Conversely, anecdotal and informal survey evidence has emerged implying that British businesses are perhaps far more commercially orientated towards CP than might previously have been supposed. This paper presents the results of a survey of 281 UK corporate donors across a broad range of industries and companies with widely differing turnovers and numbers of employees. It is concluded that many respondent firms recognized clearly the marketing possibilities and advantages that accompany CP, particularly in the image-enhancement and overall public relations (PR) fields. A majority of the sample businesses located the CP function in a marketing or PR department and 40% stated that they considered CP when drafting marketing plans. The numerous contributions that CP can make to a firm's general promotional effort were confirmed, although the objectives set for CP were vague and the evaluation methods employed were inadequate. Procedures for integrating CP into a company's marketing communications mix need to be better structured, more formal and carefully monitored and controlled.