With little fanfare (and no press release), the Conference Board issued a report that showed that for the first time in 2004, corporations made more contributions in kind than in cash. The big advances in in-kind giving are in the area of pharmaceuticals, but there are several trends that favor corporate in-kind giving over cash.
The Wall Street Journal noted that corporate in-kind giving has its basis in favorable tax provisions on the books since 1976 that allow large corporations to deduct up to double the cost of many types of donated goods and property. (There's another version of the story on CFO.com, for the WSJ-deprived.)
This article by KPMG LLP explains the details.
The generous deduction overcomes the qualms that modern corporate manager can have about the use of corporate funds for purely charitable purposes.
The largest charities based on giving in kind are Gifts in Kind International and NAEIR (the National Association for the Exchange of Industrial Resources).
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