To found or not to found? Corporate foundations as strategisc tools for corporate philanthropy

Abstract

This research focuses on the choice that firms involved in philanthropy must do between directly donating to independent nonprofits and channeling their contributions through corporate foundations under their control. The conceptual debate on how these two alternative ways to organize corporate philanthropy allow the organizations involved to achieve better performance in terms of a set of different productivity indicators will be illustrated with an empirical research comparing the performance of corporate and independent foundations, based on a survey to a representative sample of 325 foundations. Linear regression models will be used to test the hypotheses.