The Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy (CECP) and The Conference Board are joining forces to promote one survey to capture the full scope and scale of annual contributions by leading global companies. CECP, now in association with The Conference Board, produces an annual benchmarking report, Giving in Numbers, which is corporate philanthropy’s premier report focusing on giving and is a resource to assess the trends in corporate initiatives.  This association will further strengthen the repository of giving data, building upon the more than $85 billion in corporate cash and non-cash giving collected by CECP since 2001.

“Our two organizations share a belief in the power of benchmarking and trend analysis as key instruments for continuous learning, helping companies design programs that better serve society,” said Charles Moore, Executive Director, CECP.  “CECP is committed to continuing to invest in the development and expansion of Giving in Numbers and its source, the Corporate Giving Standard (CGS) survey, including work currently underway to create a global definition of what constitutes a charitable gift.”

“This association leverages the pioneering 60-year history of The Conference Board as an advocate for accurate corporate philanthropy measurement and valuation alongside CECP’s robust work in defining,  reporting on and benchmarking the field,” said Jonathan Spector, President and CEO, The Conference Board.  “As The Conference Board brings its The Corporate Contributions Report and Corporate Contributions Survey to a close, we reflect back on our proud legacy of data collection and thought leadership, and see this collaboration with CECP as a crucial next phase of work to inform the corporate giving community.”

CECP releases Giving in Numbers each year, and in the fall of 2012 will release the eighth annual report on corporate giving trends with the benefit of support and insights from The Conference Board.  The 2011 report included CGS Survey data from 184 CECP respondents, including 63 of the top 100 companies in the Fortune 500.  It is the only survey of corporate contributions available for public download at no cost. 

CECP and The Conference Board have worked together previously on the early development of the CECP CGS survey.  The Conference Board will further support the collection and dissemination of corporate giving data among its  500 largest corporate  members, increasing the resulting data set, and continue to provide insight into the creation of the survey. 

Companies wishing to join the benchmarking project are invited to contact CECP or The Conference Board. The survey covering 2011 contributions is now open and the submission deadline for inclusion in the analysis is April 4, 2012. CECP will present the findings from the survey at the Corporate Philanthropy Summit on June 5–6 in New York City.