A new list of America's most generous companies found that old-school corporations are the nation's biggest givers. Although fabulously wealthy, members of the technology industry made a relatively poor showing.
Bank of America was the No. 1 corporate giver on Worth magazine's list of the top 50 corporate donors, contributing US$92 million to charitable organizations in 1998. General Motors, which tops the Fortune 500, was a distant second, giving $60 million to charity.
Neither company made Worth's "Profit Sharers" list, which ranked companies according to the percent of their profits donated in relation to their total earnings.
Champion International, a paper and forest products company, topped that list. The company gave 6.61 percent of its total earnings, followed by HMO Humana, which gave 4.84 percent.
The December issue of Worth is scheduled to appear on newsstands Tuesday.
"Our main goal was to bring a little competitive spirit to the business of corporate giving. That's the purpose of the ranking -- to do for corporate giving what Ted Turner did for individual giving, which is to challenge people to give more money," said Nelson Aldrich, author of the Worth article, and editorial director of Civilization magazine.
Perhaps the message won't be wasted on Silicon Valley companies, most of which were conspicuously absent from the list.
Intel (No. 15) and Hewlett Packard (No. 22) were the only two Silicon Valley companies included, giving $47.5 million and $32.8 million respectively.
Valley companies are notoriously stingy charity contributors, said Mal Warwick, co-founder of Digital Donor, which helps political candidates raise money via the Internet, and Mal Warwick & Associates, which helps nonprofits with fund-raising.
"It's regrettable, because technology companies are making such large sums of money now. There really should be much more generosity forthcoming from the likes of Intel and Cisco and others."
Warwick pointed out the Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose and the Peninsula Community Fund, which donates money to education, as significant contributions from the Valley, "but philanthropy has yet to become institutionalized and is not a major feature of the corporate scene in Silicon Valley."
Although technology companies made a meager showing, telecommunications firms stood out as the most prominent givers among them. SBC Communications, AT&T, Bell Atlantic, GTE, US West, and Bell South all made the list. Of those, however, only US West made the Profit Sharers list at No. 46, donating 1.13 percent of its profits ($27 million).
It's not surprising that the telecoms figure prominently, Warwick said.
"There is a considerable amount of self-interest in all corporate giving -- there are those companies that deal directly with the general public that place a special premium on being viewed as good corporate citizens," he said.
It makes sense, then, that the top five on the list are companies that sell directly to people, not to other companies: Bank of America, General Motors, Johnson & Johnson, Philip Morris, and General Electric.
Although Microsoft is not on the list, Bill Gates himself is a noted philanthropist. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, founded by Gates and his wife, has set aside more than $17 billion for causes such as education, technology, and health.
In the same vein, the Hewlett Foundation -- a private foundation set up by Hewlett Packard's William Hewlett and his late wife -- granted $74 million to programs in education, the performing arts, and other activities in 1998.
The Packards have their own family foundation called the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, which granted $348 million in 1998.
An obvious possible reason for the absence of Silicon Valley companies may be their lack of cash earnings. Although many are wealthy on paper, stockholders might not take kindly to their giving money away when they're not turning a profit, although some companies choose to donate shares of stock, said Rich Halberg, communications director for Joint Ventures: Silicon Valley Network.
"I think high tech enterprises get a bad rap," Halberg said. "They're perceived as not giving their fair share, but if you look at the charitable foundations, some of the biggest are [funded by] the high tech industry."
