Amanda Putter
Research Mentor(s): John Tropman
Mentor Department: Macro Practice
Authors: Amanda Putter, John Tropman
Session: Session 6 (3:00pm – 3:50pm)
Presentation Type: Poster 77
Abstract
The Corporate Philanthropy Project was started in the Fall Semester of 2024 and continued through the Winter Semester of 2025. Its purpose is to explore and document the philanthropic architecture of Corporate America for both public and private for-profit corporations. This work involves public companies and B-CORP Companies, also known as triple-bottom-line companies (People, Planet, Profit). Activities range from sharing their product, giving free services, and loaning out executives and employees matching gifts. In the first phase, we seek to understand more about what they do, why they do it, whom they hire to administer the programs, how they know if their goals are being accomplished, and if the philanthropy exhibits a positive social impact. We achieve this by reviewing corporate Philanthropy literature and exploring discussions with corporate philanthropy professionals. The goals of phase two were to explore the role of corporate leadership (C-level and Board) in these efforts. In phase two, we used our preliminary article readings and interviews to inform our decisions on the specific philanthropic leaders we interviewed. Phase three would involve seeking to develop internships for UM students through the undergraduate social impact major and professional schools, primarily, but not exclusively, the School of Social Work. Some issues we have faced include flawed philanthropic rationales, including what seems like a good way to market themselves. We have also seen some companies have a genuine desire to “give†back to the community from which they are “extracting†support through sales and services. This can all be visualized through the three S structures, where each S represents each of our three phases.
