Corporate In-Kind Donations Up 5 Percent in 2009

While corporations cut back their charitable giving in 2009, non-cash contributions by U.S.-based companies rose by 5 percent, USA Today reports. A recent survey of the nation's largest companies conducted by the Chronicle of Philanthropy and USA Today found that the dollar amount of cash grants awarded by U.S.-based corporations declined some 7.5 percent, to $3.9 billion, in 2009. The survey also found that non-cash contributions of items such as computer equipment, software, drugs, and employees' time accounted for more than 50 percent of the total charitable contributions at nineteen of the companies surveyed. For example, employees at Bank