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Synopsis of the Survey on Corporate Philanthropic Activities in Fiscal 1998


Keidanren
(Japan Federation of Economic Organizations)

December 14, 1999

In July of 1999, Keidanren mailed questionnaires to 1,054 companies which were either members of Keidanren or its 1% Club. The questionnaire touched on matters such as the amount of money spent on corporate philanthropic activities in fiscal 1998, the ratio between philanthropic expenditures and pretax profits, the ratio of donations to tax exemption limits, the introduction of corporate systems to promote philanthropic activities and the introduction of programs to aid personnel in participating in philanthropic activities.
In total, 378 companies answered the questionnaire for a 35.9% reply rate.

Results of Expenditure Survey

  1. Total Expenditures on Philanthropic Activities
  2. The total amount of money spent on philanthropic activities in fiscal 1998 by the 360 corporations that responded to the survey was 137.6 billion yen. This translates to an average 382 million yen expenditure per company for a 7.7% decline from the fiscal 1997 figure of 414 million yen per company.
    Furthermore, the analysis of expenditures by 283 companies which participated in the survey for two consecutive years revealed that the number of companies which cut expenditures (196) exceeded the number of companies which increased expenditures (79).
    As to the trends of average expenditure per company and its ratio to the ordinary profit, please refer to the Chart 1 on page 2.

    Total Expenditure on Philanthropic Activities (in millions of yen)
    Fiscal Year1992199319941995199619971998
    Total Amount167,000149,400154,200145,400162,000155,700137,600
    (Number of companies)(381)(398)(404)(367)(405)(376)(360)
    Average per company438450382396400414382
    (Growth Rate)(-16.6%)(-7.5%)(-5.7%)(+3.8%)(+1.0%)(+3.5%)(-7.7%)

  3. Ratio of Expenditures on Philanthropic Activities to Ordinary profits, etc. (Simple Average)
  4. Among the 295 respondents to the question regarding the ratio of philanthropic expenditures to ordinary profit in fiscal 1998, the ratio per company on a simple average was 2.59%. This figure is down 0.04 points from the data collected for fiscal 1997 and reflects the drop in philanthropic expenditures. Moreover, the ratios for philanthropic expenditures to total sales figures and to pretax profits also fell below the corresponding figures collected for fiscal 1997 and proved to be the lowest ever recorded.

    The Ratio of Expenditure on Philanthropy Activities to Total
    Sales, Ordinary profits and Pretax Profits (Simple Average)
    Fiscal Year1992199319941995199619971998
    Ratio to Total Sales0.15%0.21%0.17%0.16%0.18%0.12%0.10%
    (Number of companies)(327)(321)(347)(341)(384)(363)(342)
    Ratio to Ordinary Profits2.86%3.47%3.25%2.36%2.40%2.63%2.59%
    (Number of companies)(343)(315)(333)(326)(368)(337)(295)
    Ratio to Pretax Profits3.24%4.25%3.50%3.30%2.88%2.97%2.70%
    (Number of companies)(330)(310)(318)(312)(350)(319)(256)

    Chart 1: The trend of average expenditure on philanthropic activities and its ratio to ordinary profit
    Chart 1

  5. The Breakdown of Expenditure on Philanthropic Activities
  6. After asking the total expenditure, the questionnaire delved into how much of the expenditures were comprised of donations and how much were comprised of money spent supporting the corporation's independent programs (money spent enacting philanthropic programs designed by the corporation).

    A. Donations
    Within the philanthropic expenditures, average donations per company in fiscal 1998 was 247 million yen for a 10.2% drop from fiscal 1997.

    Total Donations (in millions of yen)
    Fiscal Year1992199319941995199619971998
    Total Amount120,700107,400112,800107,100104,900102,70088,300
    (Number of companies)(380)(366)(402)(360)(396)(373)(357)
    Average per company318293281297265275247
    (Growth Rate)(-15.9%)(-7.9%)(-4.1%)(+6.0%)(-10.8%)(+3.9%)(-10.2%)

    B. Expenditures on Corporate Independent Programs
    Within the philanthropic expenditure figures, among the 357 respondents the average amount per company spent on independent programs was 138 million yen for a 4.2% drop from fiscal 1997. Nevertheless, the ratio of money devoted to expenditures on corporate independent programs within the total philanthropic expenditures has remained at a high level for the past number of years.

    Expenditure on Independent Programs (in millions of yen)
    Fiscal Year1992199319941995199619971998
    Total Amount46,30042,00041,30038,30057,10053,00049,300
    (Number of companies)(329)(365)(361)(361)(387)(367)(357)
    Average per company141115115106147144138
    (Growth Rate)(-40.5%)(-18.4%)(0.0%)(-7.8%)(+38.7%)(-2.1%)(-4.2%)

    Chart 2: Average donations and independent programs per company
    Chart 2

    C. Uses of Donations and Money Spent in Independent Philanthropic Programs
    Upon classifying the ratio of donation expenditures by category, one sees that the high ratio fields were either categories requiring specialist knowledge such as academic research at 19.8% and education at 12.3% or regional societal activities at 14.1%.
    On the other hand, the fields which had a high ratio of expenditures in regards to corporate independent programs were art and culture at 21.1%, regional societal activities at 18.5%, environmental protection at 12.2%, etc. The wide-margin growth of the environmental protection field was especially prominent.

    DonationsIndependent Programs
    Percentage of the Total for Fiscal 1998
    (Number of companies: 329)
    Percentage of the Total for Fiscal 1997 Percentage of the Total for Fiscal 1998
    (Number of companies: 186)
    Percentage of the Total for Fiscal 1997
    (1)Social Welfare
    7.10%8.90% (iv)10.30%10.90%
    (2)Health/Medicine
    6.10%5.30%
    5.30%4.30%
    (3)Sports
    6.10%8.10% (v)9.80%10.20%
    (4)Academic Research (i)19.80%17.60%
    5.20%6.00%
    (5)Education (iii)12.30%14.30%
    8.90%9.60%
    (6)Arts/Culture (v)9.50%8.30% (i)21.10%22.70%
    (7)Environmental Protection
    4.80%5.00% (iii)12.20%9.60%
    (8)Preservation of Historical Site and Traditional Culture
    2.30%2.50%
    1.20%1.50%
    (9)Community Involvement (ii)14.10%13.00% (ii)18.50%16.40%
    (10)International Exchange/Cooperation
    5.80%5.90%
    3.30%4.40%
    (11)Disaster Aid
    1.20%1.10%
    1.20%0.20%
    (12)Others (iv)11.00%10.00%
    3.20%4.10%
    * ; (i)-(v) Top five in each category

  7. The Ratio of Donations to Tax Exemption Limits (Simple Average)
  8. The application rate (simple average) of the tax exemption limit to donations was 51.0% for general donations and 22.9% for Designated Public Interest Organizations, both of which were 4-5% below the same figures recorded for fiscal 1997.
    Moreover, the number of companies which reached 100% of the application rate of the tax exemption limit was 42 (13.5% of total respondents) for general donations and 13 (4.3% of total respondents) for Designated Public Interest Organizations.

    The Ratio of Donations to Tax Exemption Limits (Simple Average)
    Fiscal Year1992199319941995199619971998
    Average Ratio to General Tax Exemption Limit 50.2%47.0%48.8%52.8%51.2%55.1%51.0%
    (Companies responding) (333)(307)(329)(286)(328)(324)(312)
    Average Ratio to Tax Exemption Limit of Donations to Designated Public Interest Org. 24.6%24.8%27.2%29.1%24.8%27.8%22.9%
    (Companies responding) (330)(298)(318)(269)(313)(315)(302)

    The Number of Corporations Which Gave Donations up to the 100% of Tax Exemption Limit
    Fiscal Year1992199319941995199619971998
    General Tax Exemption Limit 56 corp.42 corp.30 corp.25 corp. 34 corp.51 corp.42 corp.
    (Ratio to companies responding) (16.8% of
    333 corp.)
    (13.7% of
    307 corp.)
    (9.1% of
    329 corp.)
    (8.7% of
    286 corp.)
    (10.4% of
    328 corp.)
    (15.7% of
    324 corp.)
    (13.5% of
    312 corp.)
    Tax Exemption Limit of Donations to Designated Public Interest Org. 22 corp.20 corp.22 corp.12 corp. 19 corp.20 corp.13 corp.
    (Ratio to companies responding) (6.7% of
    330 corp.)
    (6.7% of
    298 corp.)
    (6.9% of
    318 corp.)
    (4.5% of
    269 corp.)
    (6.2% of
    313 corp.)
    (6.3% of
    315 corp.)
    (4.3% of
    302 corp.)

  9. The Systems Newly Introduced to Promote Philanthropic Activities
  10. Philanthropic activity promotion organizations within the Corporate Structure

    The number of companies which established some types of philanthropic activity promotion organization was 213, or 56.3% of all responding companies. In particular, companies with "documentation of basic policies" (148) and "organization of an exclusive department or appointment of a director in charge of corporate philanthropy" (123) stand out.

    Fiscal Year- 19911992199319941995199619971998Total
    Number of corporations that induced system 11449242526213027213
    Documentation of basic policies 59241311851612148
    Organization of an exclusive department or appointment of a director 491813886156123
    Appointment of a director in branches 9933353641
    Establishment of a corporate philanthropy committee 271061478467
    Making the budget for philanthropic activities 37842718471
    Establishment of money conversion rules 14523314032
    Others 4913122325
    Total 19983423134275635

    Programs to support the philanthropic activities of employees

    When looking at the data to discern conditions for companies introducing programs to aid personnel in participating in philanthropic activities, one sees that around half of the respondents at 205 companies have introduced some sort of program.
    Especially striking is the number of firms setting up programs giving employees time off for volunteer activities at 98 cases and the number of firms giving employees time off to participate in the Japanese version of the Peace Corps at 78 cases.
    Moreover, within the category labeled "Other," there were a large number of companies that had introduced corporate systems to aid in donating capital to purchase supplies or pay a portion of transportation expenses to groups performing volunteer activities when those groups included company employees or family members of company employees.

    Fiscal Year- 19911992199319941995199619971998Total
    Number of corporations that induced system 7151343632283323205
    Volunteer leave system 61598547357
    Japan Overseas Cooperation participation leave system 2714912345478
    Volunteer time-off system 6211310151313798
    Local community activity time-off system 3673201123
    Volunteer activist recognition system 12727145341
    Volunteer registration system 2257754335
    Matching gift system 51451443440
    Local community contribution activity campaign 23940217349
    Others 54234241034
    Total 8992565143374938


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