August 23, 2007
US Workers Say They Support Overseas Giving by Companies
By Ian Wilhelm
Almost three-quarters of American workers said corporations should assist poor people in Africa and other impoverished areas abroad, says a new survey.
Sixty percent of respondents said that companies should focus their philanthropic efforts on aid for Africans in “extreme poverty,” defined as living on less than $1 a day, the report says.
The survey of more than 6,800 U.S. employees was sponsored by CareerBuilder.com, an online job site, and Millennium Promise, a charity in New York. The nonprofit group works on development projects in sub-Saharan Africa with the United Nations and is run by Jeffrey D. Sachs, an economist who is director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, in New York.
“The survey is wonderful news,” Mr. Sachs said in a statement. “American workers believe it’s important for their companies to contribute to solving global problems, especially in Africa.”
But despite Mr. Sachs’s praise, the report also indicated that respondents were as interested — if not more so — in helping the United States.
A majority of Americans — 87 percent — said corporations should “give back to their local communities,” as opposed to 72 percent who said they wanted such support for international social ills. And while Africa was designated as the continent that needed the most assistance, North America was second.
Millennium Promise and CareerBuilder.com also tauted that 48 percent of workers said they were inclined to work for a company that made donations to charity. But a larger percentage — 52 percent — said they did not prefer their employers to be philanthropic.
A copy of the survey results is available on Millennium Promise’s Web site.
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