Corporate Philanthropy

This chapter provides a brief overview of corporate philanthropy. It starts off with defining the term and giving alternative views on its understanding. Then it moves on to outlining corporate philanthropy’s historical development by blending both academic and managerial perspectives into its current knowledge base, including approaches to its communication. The second part of this chapter focuses on key findings from academic literature regarding the benefits and risks of communicating corporate philanthropy. Here I stress the relevance of corporate philanthropy communication to a broad stakeholder group while I also raise a note of caution concerning the mode of its communication. The final part of this chapter is presenting an outlook on moving the concept forward, both in academic and practical terms. It is structured around five core areas, identified as promising avenues for future research.