The most active companies and corporate foundations collectively donated nearly $142 million to Los Angeles County charities last year, a 9.6 percent annual increase.
The boost in generosity from the top 25 companies on the Business Journal’s annual list of corporate philanthropy – ranked by monetary donations to local charitable organizations – exceeds the national pace. Donations by corporate foundations throughout the U.S. grew by 8 percent in 2017 to $20.8 billion, according to an annual report on charitable giving by Chicago-based nonprofit Giving USA.
Giving USA cited robust stock market gains and a growing economy as principal factors behind the increase.
San Francisco-based Wells Fargo & Co. led the list of donors to causes in L.A. County despite reducing its donations here by nearly 5 percent to $18.2 million. The rest of the top five corporate philanthropists maintained their ranking from 2016. Overall, 15 companies increased their giving, while seven saw reductions, with three flat from the year prior, according to Business Journal estimates.
Top-ranked Wells Fargo’s Luis Gonzalez, who serves as the bank’s executive vice president for community relations for the L.A. area, attributed the drop in giving in L.A. County to a decision to shift more resources to the Inland Empire.
“We did an assessment of critical needs in the areas of affordable housing and workforce development and found a larger unmet need in the Inland Empire than in Los Angeles,” Gonzalez said. “So, we shifted some resources to the Inland Empire to bring it more in line with (what we give to) the rest of the region.”
Burbank-based entertainment giant Walt Disney Co. grew its local donations by 37 percent to $17.9 million.
“Our support for this area started more than 90 years ago with Walt Disney, and we are proud to continue it today through both cash contributions to charitable organizations and the volunteer efforts of our employees,” a spokesman said in an email to the Business Journal.
Storm effect
No. 5 Panda Restaurant Group increased its donations to local charities 18 percent last year to $11.9 million.
Winnie Chan, director of the Panda Charitable Foundation, said the company launched a major fundraising drive after hurricanes hit Texas, Florida and Puerto Rico last year. Chan said the company made the donations while also handling fallout of its own, with a number of Panda Express locations damaged and having to close during and immediately after the storms.
Chan said much of the money Panda raised in Southern California was donated to the Tzu Chi Foundation of El Monte, an international humanitarian organization that provided the funds to the hurricane-impacted areas. “Tzu” means “compassion” and “chi” means “relief” in Chinese, according to the foundation’s website.
Panda upped its donations amount also because the number of its stores grew over the year, and that meant there were more employees who could donate to the corporate foundation, Chan said.
Panda is focusing more of its local philanthropic efforts on educational institutions in the area this year, she added.
No. 6 JPMorgan Chase & Co. was the biggest gainer on the list, increasing its donations to local charities by 40 percent to $9 million.
JPMorgan Chase spokesman Erich Timmerman attributed last year’s growth to a grant of more than $2 million to Genesis LA, the inner-city economic development program launched by former Mayor Richard Riordan that today functions as a community development financial institution. The grant is part of a larger five-year, $125 million JPMorgan Chase program that supports economic development, small business growth and affordable housing in communities throughout the U.S., Timmerman said.
Donations by No. 16 Blue Shield of California Foundation fell nearly 50 percent – the most last year of companies on the list – to $3.2 million. Spokeswoman Christine Vaughan said the reduction was magnified because Blue Shield’s 2016 figure of $6.5 million was boosted by a one-time $2 million grant the foundation made to downtown-based nonprofit Community Partners, which distributed the money in smaller grants to groups throughout the state.
“We are very much committed to improving health and safety in Los Angeles County, and will continue to invest in charitable organizations in the county,” Vaughan said.
Increases ahead?
The changes to the federal tax code that came late in 2017 didn’t lead companies interviewed by the Business Journal to increase their donations for that year, but this year will be a different story, some executives said.
Local Wells Fargo community relations executive Gonzalez said because of the tax law package, the bank is giving more to charities this year, an increase that will appear in next year’s list.
“After the federal tax changes at the end of last year, we announced our intention to increase philanthropic cash giving by 40 percent companywide this year over last year,” Gonzalez said. “And in 2019, Wells Fargo has committed to a goal of 2 percent of after-tax profits going to charitable giving.”
