Commitment by big business is not being replicated in practice survey finds
Charitable giving by the UK’s largest businesses has fallen again.
Despite public commitments to social responsibility from a number of corporate bosses, research by the Charities Aid Foundation found that total donations by FTSE 100 companies fell more than a quarter between 2013 and 2016, to £1.9bn.
And donations have fallen 11% since 2014.
Klara Kozlov, head of corporate clients at CAF, said she believed corporate giving helped increase trust between business and society.
“It is vital that civil society can work with businesses to show how partnership between charities and business can benefit both, as well as greatly enriching society,” she said.
“Unfortunately the downward trajectory for corporate giving continues, with fewer companies replenishing a depleted pool of money donated to charitable causes.”
CAF analysed the annual corporate responsibility reports from 2009 to 2017 of each FTSE 100 company as of September 12, 2017.
Donations of money, time, management services and in-kind donations were included but in some cases the type of donation was not specified.
Due to a change in legislation in 2013, it is no longer mandatory for companies to report their charitable donations, and 15 FTSE 100 companies did not do so for the 2015/6 financial year, CAF said.
It recommended that the government reinstated the requirement to report charitable contributions.
CAF said that, in the eight years it had been evaluating annual report data on charitable giving by the FTSE 100, aggregate revenues had increased 14% while donations had increased 1%.
Six companies had made charitable donations in spite of a pre-tax loss. Although revenues have declined for both the financial and telecommunications sector, the decline in donations was greater than the fall in revenues.
However, the combined percentage of pre-tax profit donated across the index increased, due to a handful of companies giving more, with the top 10 donors accounting for 68% of total donations in 2016, led by pharmaceutical companies.
