Evolving Corporate Philanthropy

With the rise of corporate ESG initiatives and public benefit corporations, corporate philanthropy is evolving from an emphasis on cash contributions (contributional philanthropy) to an emphasis on adjusting operations to advance the public good (operational philanthropy). All forms of corporate philanthropy are controversial, but this article evaluates the impact of this evolution on the relative benefits and concerns of corporate philanthropy, arguing that the shift in emphasis towards operational philanthropy increases the comparative advantage of corporate philanthropy, increases agency costs, both simplifies and complicates shareholder primacy concerns, and increases the difficulty of prescriptively regulating corporate philanthropy through the tax code or otherwise. This article goes on to argue that accurate and transparent disclosure is the key to minimizing the costs and maximizing the benefits of the now ascendant operational philanthropy and concludes by offering a few observations on disclosure-based regulation of operational philanthropy.