Although corporate philanthropy increased in 2010, corporate giving by industry has followed strikingly divergent paths since 2007, a new report from the Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy finds.

Because the financial crisis affected the profits of different industries at different times, the recovery in corporate giving has been anything but uniform. Based on data from 184 companies, including 63 of the top 100 companies in the Fortune 500, Giving in Numbers (50 pages, PDF), CECP's annual report on corporate giving trends, found that while a quarter of the companies in the sample had increased their giving by at least 25 percent over pre-crisis levels, more than one in five (21 percent) had reduced their giving by more than 25 percent, an indication that many are still in the process of rebuilding their profitability. Indeed, 54 percent of the companies in the sample reported lower profits in 2010 than in 2007. At the same time, 50 percent of the companies gave more in 2010 than in 2007, while 45 percent gave less and 5 percent reported modest changes of less than 2 percent in their giving.

The report also found that 61 percent of companies increased their cash contributions on a year-over-year basis in 2010 — a reversal from 2009, when 67 percent of companies in the sample reduced cash contributions. Nevertheless, cash contribution levels still have not fully rebounded from the crisis and ensuing recession, with 53 percent of companies giving less cash in 2010 than they did in 2007 and 42 percent cutting their cash contributions by 10 percent or more.

"As 2010 was the third in a series of strained and uncertain years, this edition of Giving in Numbers not only presents a profile of corporate philanthropy in 2010, but also seeks to answer the pivotal question: How has corporate giving changed since the onset of the economic downturn?," said the report's author, Alison Rose, manager of standards and measurement at CECP. "The multiyear analysis in the opening section of this report offers a short answer: Companies do not always move in tandem. While some have responded to community need at levels that far exceed their contribution levels in 2007, other companies have cut back."