Compas Poll / Survey

CEOs and other business leaders believe that political donations are not a particularly good business investment and entail some PR risk but nonetheless make such donations to support the political process and free enterprise, according to the most recent COMPAS/National Post web-survey sponsored by the Canadian Chamber of Commerce and CIBC.

About half of the respondents in the weekly poll make donations personally and nearly half work for or own companies that make company donations. The motivations for corporate and personal donations are slightly different. Ideological considerations (e.g. free enterprise), personal relationships, and stopping undesirable politicians are more important considerations for personal than corporate donations. Meanwhile earning goodwill and contributing to public affairs strategies matter more for corporate donations than for the donations made personally by corporate executives.

The responses to this web-survey reveal that 45% of respondents’ organizations make donations as a practice. In practice, this is an under-estimate of the actual giving behaviour of companies because about one-fourth of respondents in the web-survey are executives of local and national Chambers of Commerce, which have a policy of no political donations. The proportion of respondents who make personal donations to parties or politicians is higher - 50%.