Corporate social impact programs in 2026 face a widening gap between budget and proof. The latest full-year figures, for 2025, put median community investment at large companies at US$23.5 million, up 7.5% after inflation, though 52% of them cut spending. From 27 September 2026, the EU bans social impact claims you cannot prove. This report benchmarks your program on budget, measurement, data and compliance, with every number verified.
Median community investment rose 7.5% after inflation to US$23.5 million in 2025.2 Yet 52% of companies cut their spending, so total spending across the group barely moved.2 The growth came from a small group of large programs.
In the UK, businesses gave £4.2 billion in 2024, yet 75% of them gave nothing at all.5 The Netherlands shows the same pattern: giving reached €1.68 billion, from fewer donors.6 France is the exception, with donor numbers rising instead of falling.4
Among companies preparing sustainability reports, 87% still use spreadsheets as a reporting tool.13 Finance teams feel it too: 96% hit problems with nonfinancial data.14 That matters once claims must be proven, as chapter 4 shows.
Today 93% of social impact teams use AI, up from 73% in 2025 and 53% in 2024.11,15 In sustainability reporting, AI use rose from 11% to 28% of companies.13 The systems behind the data have moved far less, as chapter 3 shows.
From 27 September 2026, the EU bans vague environmental and social claims that lack proof.22 Meanwhile CSRD, the EU sustainability reporting law, now covers only companies with over 1,000 employees and €450 million turnover.17 Fewer companies must report, but claims to consumers now need evidence.
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In 2026, corporate giving in the United States sits at a record level. The latest full-year figures, for 2024, show US$44.40 billion, up 9.1% in current dollars and 6.0% after inflation.1 That is about 7.5% of all US charitable giving, roughly one dollar in every thirteen.1
Inside large companies, however, the picture is split, because the typical (median) program is growing while most individual programs are shrinking.2 Europe shows the same split, with large national totals but fewer companies doing the giving.5,6 This chapter looks at the United States first, then at Europe country by country, so you can place your own budget against the market you operate in.
CECP is a coalition of large companies that benchmarks their giving through Total Community Investment, a measure of cash, foundation and in-kind (non-cash) giving.2 Its headline figures come from a matched set of 139 companies that reported in both 2024 and 2025, so changes reflect real movement rather than a changing sample.2
In that set, the median rose 7.5% after inflation to US$23.5 million in 2025, from US$21.9 million in 2024.2 The top quartile, the best-funded quarter of companies, grew faster still, up 10.6% to US$67.0 million.2 Yet 52% of those same companies cut their community spending, so spending across the whole group actually fell 0.2%.2 The growth therefore comes from a small group of large programs, while most companies are giving less.
Programs also cost less to run. A separate CECP survey found that median investment rose 5% between 2022 and 2024, while management and program costs fell 22% over the same three years.8 More money is moving through leaner programs.
The B4SI network gives a second reference point for the size of a program. Its members invested US$2.6 billion in 2023/24 and reached 52.8 million people.3 Per member, that works out at US$20.1 million, or 0.76% of pre-tax profit and 0.14% of revenue.3 The 2024/25 figures of 0.77% of profit and 0.15% of revenue show that this share is stable, so you can use it as a benchmark for your own budget.9
Europe tells a similar story to the United States: strong national totals resting on a narrower base of donors.4,5,6 The pattern differs by country, as the list below shows.
Chapter 1 covered the money. This chapter covers how programs are run in 2026: what they measure, how many partners they work with, and how much pressure the people running them are under. The benchmarks come from three sources.
This table benchmarks eight core numbers for a community investment program. All B4SI members measure their giving through one shared method, so the figures below are directly comparable across companies.9
| Benchmark | Latest sector data | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Companies measuring and reporting impact | 51% of B4SI members in 2024/25, an all-time high | B4SI9 |
| Evaluation data collected | 80% collect outputs and outcomes, while 76% collect program activities | CECP 20258 |
| Strategic share of contributions | 68% of contributions classed as strategic community investment | B4SI9 |
| Partner portfolio | Partners down 9% in two years, while 43% of companies moved more spend into strategic investment | B4SI9 |
| Corporate foundation staffing | Median of 4 full-time staff (FTEs), flat for three years, while median transfers rose 16% to US$10 million | CECP 202610 |
| Management and program cost | Median down 22% over three years | CECP 20258 |
| Who owns the program | Human Resources is the most common owner, at 20% of companies | CECP 20258 |
| Pressure to measure | 66% of corporate social impact teams report more demand to measure impact | ACCP 202611 |
The pressure on teams is the same across corporate giving in 2026: more money and more scrutiny, handled by the same number of people. Corporate foundations moved 16% more money in 2025 with an unchanged median of four full-time staff.10 Across the wider set of large givers, median management and program costs fell 22% over three years, in a separate, larger CECP survey.8
Two thirds of teams, 66%, now report more pressure to measure their impact, and the strain shows in the burnout figure, which rose from 39% to 64% in one year.11
B4SI members, for their part, are focusing their giving on fewer partners.9 A growing share of their spending, now 68% of all contributions, is classed as strategic, meaning planned, long-term giving on a few chosen social issues rather than one-off donations.9
Capital Power runs community investment across 28 facilities in North America on Optimy. "We went from 7 to 3 minutes per application," says Lindsay C., Community Specialist. That cut processing time by more than half, and every request now follows the same path.
The tools have not caught up with the scrutiny. Among companies preparing a sustainability report, under the EU's CSRD law or the global ISSB standard, 87% still use spreadsheets, almost unchanged from 88% a year earlier.13
Finance leaders describe the same weakness from the inside. Among them, 96% run into problems with the nonfinancial data their organization relies on, meaning figures such as impact, emissions or workforce numbers.14 Only 32% have systems advanced enough to manage and analyze that data, while 39% say limited IT resources hold them back.14
The tooling is improving but started small, with dedicated sustainability software up from 23% to 37% of companies in a year.13 AI use in reporting moved the same way, from 11% to 28%.13 Neither has displaced the spreadsheet, which is why the data problem outlasts the new tools.
In 2025, 73% of corporate social impact teams used AI tools in some way, up from 53% in 2024.15 Data analysis and aggregation was the fastest-growing use, reaching 37% of teams from 14% a year earlier.15 At the same time, 43% had adopted, or were exploring, a new technology platform for their programs.15
By 2026, AI adoption had reached 93%, as chapter 2 showed.11 In practice, the analysis tools arrived before the data they depend on, so the quality of that data now decides how far AI can be trusted.
The first wave of CSRD reports shows why data quality matters. EFRAG, the body that drafts the EU's reporting standards, studied the first 656 companies to publish, whose statements ran from about 25 to 440 pages and averaged 115 pages.16 In a reviewed subset, only about 30% of companies clearly labeled their own entity-specific datapoints, meaning figures a company defines itself rather than ones the standard requires.16
The rest presented them as if they were standard disclosures under ESRS, the European Sustainability Reporting Standards that set the detailed rules under CSRD.16 Long reports built on spreadsheets and unlabeled data are a weak base for the public claims that, as the next chapter shows, must now be proven.
In 2026, two forces reshape how you prove social impact. Mandatory sustainability reporting now covers far fewer companies, while the claims you make to consumers are policed more tightly than before. The timeline below sets out the five dates that matter for a community investment program.
Regulators are not the only audience watching. Executives split sharply by region on how much priority to give these issues, while employees and reputation hold steady regardless of the political weather. This chapter covers both: the rules that now bind your claims, and the stakeholders who judge them.
The Green Claims Directive was a proposal setting out how companies must prove environmental claims. In June 2025 the European Commission announced that it intended to withdraw the proposal.21 The Commission later softened its position, suspending the legislative process instead of formally withdrawing it.21 For social impact claims, the consumer directive below is what applies.
Omnibus I, the EU package that simplified its sustainability rules, limits CSRD to companies with more than 1,000 employees and over €450 million in net turnover.17 Non-EU parents are covered too, above €450 million in EU turnover and an EU branch above €200 million.17 The Commission estimated that the new thresholds remove roughly 80% of previously covered companies.18
EU Member States had to write the Empowering Consumers for the Green Transition Directive (2024/825) into national law by this date.22 The directive is a consumer-protection law, which means it governs the claims companies make to consumers, including social claims.
From this date, the directive's ban on vague environmental and social claims without proof applies to companies.22 A statement like "We give back to communities" then needs evidence behind it, because without evidence it becomes a consumer-law problem.
CSDDD, the EU's Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive, requires large companies to check for human rights and environmental harm in their supply chains. Its duties now apply only to companies with over 5,000 employees and more than €1.5 billion in global turnover.19 The deadline for national law also moved to July 2028, two years later than first planned.19
Companies pushed out of CSRD are not out of reporting altogether. One option is the VSME, a voluntary reporting standard for small and mid-sized companies. An EFRAG survey of 282 respondents, reported by Born2Invest, found that 95% knew about the Commission's VSME recommendation and 43% had fully adopted it.20 Among adopters, 25% named better answers to bank and investor information requests as a key driver.20
The UK, meanwhile, already requires a related disclosure under company law. Any company that must produce a strategic report has to publish a section 172(1) statement as well, unless it qualifies for the medium-sized companies regime.26 That statement covers the impact of the company's operations on the community and the environment.26
The United States is moving the other way, pulling back from mandatory climate and sustainability disclosure on three fronts.23,24
The retreat reaches beyond climate rules. In a January 2025 survey of 1,000 US companies with DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) programs, one in eight planned to cut or end them during 2025.25 For a program active in both regions, the result is two sets of expectations. Mandatory disclosure is lighter in the US, where some companies are also scaling back DEI by choice, while Europe asks for stricter proof of claims.
The gap between North America and Europe is wide: 38.4% of North American CEOs say environmental sustainability is not a priority in 2026, compared with 13.8% in Europe.27 On social issues the pattern repeats, with 14.3% of North American CEOs calling them not a priority versus 5.8% in Europe.27 Globally the figure is 8.4%, so more than nine in ten CEOs worldwide still keep social issues on their agenda.27
Investors have cooled as well. In the US, support for environmental and social shareholder resolutions, the proposals investors vote on at annual meetings, fell to about 16% in 2025.30 That is roughly half the level of three years earlier.30 Shareholder pressure has eased, then, just as European rules on proving claims have tightened.
While executives debate, employees still place their highest trust in their own employer. The 2026 Edelman Trust Barometer puts people's own employer at the top of its trust ranking, at 78%.33 That places the employer 14 points ahead of business overall and 25 points ahead of government, a level of trust a social impact program then has to live up to.33
Porter Novelli measures how closely a company's reputation tracks its purpose, meaning its reason for existing beyond profit.32 In 2025 that correlation reached 85%, the largest one-year rise in eight years, so reputation and purpose are now closely linked.32 Purpose matters to younger employees directly: in Switzerland, 95% of Gen Z and 97% of Millennials say purpose matters to their job satisfaction and well-being.31
Purpose is becoming part of how companies are managed. Among the large companies CECP surveys, 87% have a formal purpose statement.8 More than 90% use it to guide social investment and business decisions, while 67% have metrics tying business practice to purpose.8
Companies with mature purpose metrics also report stronger financial results: median pre-tax profit rose 31% between 2023 and 2024, against 3% for companies without them.8 The two move together in CECP's data, which does not show that one causes the other.
Certified B Corporations, companies independently checked for their social and environmental performance, are also growing in number. At the end of 2024, 9,368 companies held the certification, up 16% after 1,317 joined that year.28 By June 2026 the community had passed 10,800 companies, spread across 102 countries and 163 industries.29
Between them, those companies employ over one million people.29 So while some executives step back from ESG language (environmental, social and governance), more companies are choosing to have their impact verified by a third party.
This table asks one question across nine rows: is your program better measured, better focused and better proven than the sector? Every row uses data from the chapters above. Score one point where you match or beat the benchmark, and one point where you can answer yes to the question in the row. Then read the band below that matches your score.
| Dimension | Sector benchmark (2026) | You |
|---|---|---|
| Investment level | The B4SI network average is 0.77% of pre-tax profit, so score a point at 0.77% or above; only 24 FTSE 100 companies reach 1%.5,9 | |
| Impact measured | 51% of B4SI members measure and report their impact.9 | |
| Outcome data | 80% of CECP companies collect outputs and outcomes as data rather than text.8 | |
| Strategic share | 68% of B4SI contributions are strategic rather than one-off.9 | |
| Partner focus | Partner numbers are down 9% in two years across the B4SI network.9 | |
| Reporting tools | 87% of reporters still use spreadsheets, so one controlled data source already puts you ahead.13 | |
| Data quality | 96% of finance leaders hit problems with nonfinancial data.14 Would yours pass an audit? | |
| Claims evidence | Social claims without proof are banned from 27 September 2026.22 Is every public claim you make backed by data? | |
| Purpose metrics | 67% of large companies use metrics to tie business practice to purpose.8 |
CECP compares a matched set of 139 large companies, so its figures show real change rather than a changing sample.2 In that set, the median rose 7.5% after inflation to US$23.5 million in 2025, and the best-funded quarter of companies reached US$67.0 million.2 Yet 52% of the companies cut their community spending, so total spending across the group was flat.2
In 2024/25, 51% of B4SI network members measured and reported some form of impact, which is an all-time high for the network.9 Among CECP companies, 80% collect outputs and outcomes as evaluation data, so the data for measurement is widely available.8 The pressure to use it is growing too, with 66% of corporate social impact teams reporting more demand to measure impact.11
Yes. Among companies preparing sustainability reports under CSRD or ISSB, 87% still use spreadsheets, almost unchanged from 88% the year before.13 The tools around them are changing faster, as use of dedicated software rose from 23% to 37% and AI use rose from 11% to 28%.13 These figures come from PwC's Global Sustainability Reporting Survey.13
Omnibus I, adopted in February 2026, limits CSRD to companies with more than 1,000 employees and over €450 million in annual net turnover.17 The European Commission estimated that the new thresholds remove roughly 80% of previously covered companies, so most former reporters now fall outside the law.18
Yes. The Empowering Consumers for the Green Transition Directive (2024/825) had to become national law by 27 March 2026.22 Its ban on vague environmental and social claims without proof applies to companies from 27 September 2026, so any social claim to consumers now needs evidence.22 The separate Green Claims Directive remains suspended.21
Not with employees or reputation: 2026's Edelman Trust Barometer puts My Employer top at 78%, ahead of business at 64% and government at 53%.33 Porter Novelli found that the link between purpose attributes and reputation rose to 85% in 2025, its largest increase in eight years.32 Executives split by region: North American CEOs are far more likely to call sustainability a low priority.27
Optimy is one platform for community investment requests, selection, partner reporting and impact data. Companies, utilities and foundations use it to run fewer, deeper partnerships and to prove their outcomes to the board and the auditor.
Book your demo →Related reading: Impact Reporting Playbook: the clean-data method · CSR Budget in 2026: doing more with limited resources
Every statistic in this report comes from the source named below, and we re-verified each one in September 2026, before publication. Where the data year differs from the publication year, we say so, and figures are reported exactly as published, with no estimates and nothing filled in between data points. One figure comes from secondary reporting of a primary survey, the EFRAG VSME survey via Born2Invest, and the text says so inline. The SEC regulatory update is cited directly from the Commission's own press release. Where a survey covers one geography or sample, the text says so, and charts use the cited figures only.
Optimy is the platform that companies, utilities and foundations use to run their social impact programs, covering community investment, grants, sponsorship and volunteering from application to reporting. The organization featured in chapter 2, Capital Power, is an Optimy customer, and its figures and quote come from the published Optimy customer story. optimy.com
© 2026 Optimy · You may quote this report with attribution and a link to the source page. Please credit it as "Optimy, The State of Corporate Social Impact 2026".