For Fortune 500 companies, the response to the tsunami that devastated South Asia may have marked the first step in the globalization of corporate philanthropy, the Charlotte Business Journal reports.

Fortune 500 companies have contributed more than $250 million to tsunami relief, in the process becoming, as a group, one of the world's top ten donors to the relief effort. Philanthropic experts say the response of corporate America to the disaster reflects the reality of an ever-shrinking world, where improvements in telecommunications, the globalization of commerce, and widespread immigration have combined to raise the profile of disasters and humanitarian crises in formerly remote parts of the world.

"This was an issue that goes beyond philanthropic priorities and focus areas," said Andrew Plepler, president of the Bank of America Charitable Foundation. Bank of America Corp., which has between 5,000 and 7,000 associates overseas, many in Asia, anticipates that it will give more than $1.7 million to tsunami relief, including matching employee contributions of $640,000. "It was a decision driven by a real corporate culture that says it is our responsibility to respond," added Plepler.

The sheer magnitude of the disaster — the most recent reports put the number of dead at roughly 300,000 — also affected local philanthropic efforts. Randy Wheeless, spokesman for Duke Energy in Charlotte, North Carolina, said the company does not have any operations in Asia but nevertheless committed to matching individual employee donations to tsunami relief of up to $100, an amount that eventually exceeded $120,000. Elsewhere, Salisbury-based Food Lion responded immediately with a pledge of $50,000 to the American Red Cross and then organized a month-long tsunami relief campaign in 1,220 stores across eleven states, raising $180,000.

Michele Quintaglie, a former United Nations worker and now a senior vice president at public relations firm Hill & Knowlton, says businesses are getting more involved in global crises outside the scope of their usual philanthropic activities. Many companies, she adds, are even publishing annual reports on their philanthropic activities. "They would never have thought to do that five to ten years ago."

Bank of America expects to make charitable contributions well in excess of $100 million in 2005. "Our grantmaking has been almost exclusively domestic until now," said Pepler. "The tsunami has caused us to really assess our international grantmaking in a way that we haven't in the past."