When it came to percentage of pre-tax profits donated, which is how we have ranked these companies, Big Pharma led the way, taking three of the top four slots on our list. It’s more than pure altruism, notes John Carroll, editor of FierceBiotech, an industry newsletter. There’s “no harm at all in getting your corporate name out there in front of a major patient group—diabetics, cancer patients and so on—when you’re selling an expensive new product,” said Mr. Carroll.
While most of the corporations on the list have increased charitable giving in recent years, that bucks a national trend, noted Lisa M. Dietlin, president of the Institute of Transformational Philanthropy.
“Corporate America is giving less and less,” said Ms. Dietlin, adding that overall, corporations constitute 5 percent of all charitable giving nationwide.
