Public visibility as a determinant of the rate of corporate charitable donations

The rates of charitable donations against profit before tax were analysed for the years 1988 to 2002 for two groups of UK FTSE 100 companies.Using a method based on public recognition of company name, the two groups, controlled by mean and standard deviation market value by year for size, were categorised as high and low visibility.It was hypothesised that higher visibility companies would have a higher overall rate of corporate giving based on the presumption that charitable involvement and associated giving would be associated with the higher need to manage a range of social stakeholder claims concomitant with the higher visibility.The hypothesis was supported at a statistically significant level of confidence.