Charitable Giving: 7 Hated Companies That Actually Give Back a Ton

‘Tis the season for giving back.

With Thanksgiving on the horizon and Christmas soon to follow, we’re entering that time of year when people’s hearts, like Dr. Seuss’ Grinch, grow a little bigger, and we give some thought to giving to those who are less fortunate.

Not surprisingly, the last few months of the year are prime time for charities. According to one survey, most nonprofits organizations receive the majority of their contributions between October and December of any given year.

So, naturally, charitable giving is on everyone’s mind. Even those of the 2016 presidential candidates. Naturally, as the Clinton-Trump matchup — er, presidential election — swallowed up pretty much everything else in American society, it inevitably sucked charitable giving into its inescapable vortex.

For months, Clinton and Trump traded blows about how the other had misused charities and failed to support charities. Even on the day before the election, billionaire and Hillary supporter David Tepper called out Donald Trump for not giving to charities after 9/11 and Hurricane Sandy.

Why mention charities on the campaign trail? Because Americans care about giving back. In fact, we give more to charity than any other nation on earth. And we expect our most prominent leaders and celebrities to embrace and demonstrate this virtue.

The same goes for companies.

Those companies we perceive as being generous we also tend to favor and do more business with. Conversely, those who seem cheap when it comes to supporting their communities we tend to vilify and avoid. At the same time, there are certain companies we have deemed the Grinches of our economy, maybe because of scandals or costly disasters or sleazy ways. At the end of the day, you would think that the Grinch companies that tend to engage in misbehavior would also be those that turn their back on charitable giving, right?

Not so fast. When you start doing even superficial research on which companies give the most to charities, you start to realize that things aren’t nearly so clear-cut. To demonstrate, here are seven companies that everyone hates that actually give a ton to charity:

1. Wells Fargo

Wells Fargo is the Grinch company du jour. Remember how Wells Fargo executives encouraged their staff members to set up bank accounts and credit cards without people’s permission, just to meet sales goals? In just a few years, they had set up millions of unauthorized credit card and bank accounts. When the bank’s fraudulent ways were discovered, they fired over 5,300 lower-level employees, but, in Grinch-y fashion, they didn’t fire or cut the bonuses of any of the executives who led the charge.

This year, Wells Fargo got officially busted and brought in for a very public, very harsh congressional subcommittee tonguelashing.

Needless to say, Wells Fargo definitely looks like the bad guy right now, with employee and customer trust at an all-time low. But there’s just one snag: Wells Fargo is one of the most charitable companies in the world.

According to Fortune’s 2016 “Most Giving Companies” list, Wells Fargo donated $281 million to various charitable causes just in 2015. In fact, they have a corporate goal on donating between 1.2% and 1.5% of their earnings each year to charities. Much of this money goes to “climate mitigation and adaptation, sustainable agriculture and forestry, water quality, land conservation, and support for building healthy urban ecosystems,” according to their website, as well as neighborhood revitalization in low-income neighborhoods.

And they don’t just throw money at charities: they also incentivize their employees to take time to give back to their communities. Every year, for instance, employees are given two days of paid leave to volunteer in a charitable cause. According to their site, their employees have logged 4.7 million volunteer hours building and rehabilitating thousands of homes for needy families.

2. Walmart

For years, the retail giant has been hounded by just about everyone. Workers and workers rights advocates complain that Walmart shortchanges their workers on their pay. Communities complain that Walmart Supercenters strangle the life out of local businesses. Still others complain that Walmart, with its habit of pushing prices on goods lower and lower, feeds the sweatshop economy overseas. All of these complaints are true.

But these sames parties might be unaware that Walmart, which gave a whopping $301 million to charity in 2015 alone, is also the second most-generous company on earth when it comes to charitable giving.

Much of that money went to improving the economic mobility of their own employees and other retail workers, via training and career services. Walmart is also a major partner of the anti-hunger nonprofit Feeding America, donating food and trucks to distribute the food to needy families. The remainder of their giving went to flood relief, manufacturing innovation initiatives, and efforts to curb food waste.

3. ExxonMobil

This company has been in the naughty corner for decades, going back as far as the Exxon Valdez oil spill, which bathed 1,300 miles of pristine coastline in crude oil and became the worst manmade disaster ever in U.S. waters. BP has since taken that title with the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, but ExxonMobil has found new ways to look evil.

Earlier this year, it was revealed that ExxonMobil paid researchers to suppress scientific evidence of the link between global warming and fossil fuels and they used their influence around Capitol Hill to muzzle those who tried to speak on the same topic. That’s pretty Grinch-y alright.

But then you look at their charitable giving and you see a softer side of the oil and gas giant. In 2015, ExxonMobil gave 13.2% of their annuals earnings charity, a total of $268 million. This money covered a broad spread of causes from science camps to anti-malaria efforts to an international women’s group founded by Hillary Clinton.

4. JPMorgan Chase

Ever since the 2008 financial meltdown, everyone has a bad taste in their mouth toward banks, especially those deemed “too big to fail.” Chase Bank received $25 billion in bailouts during the recession and found itself in hot water numerous times during that time period for abusing customer funds, illegal payment schemes, and excessive interest rates. Ultimately, JPMorgan Chase paid hundreds of millions of dollars to make their legal woes go away, but it might not be enough to make consumers forget.

Again, going against their negative image, JPMorgan Chase, like Wells Fargo, is one of the most charitable companies in the world, giving $224 million in 2015. That’s 3.13% of their earnings. That money goes to thousands of nonprofits throughout North America, including economic recovery in Detroit, training for workers in endangered industries, and services that help normal folks learn how to save, invest, and create wealth.

5. Pfizer

Pharmaceutical companies are an easy target for consumers and politicians alike. They charge an arm and a leg for products that some literally can’t live without. They’ve also been known to use their considerable coffers to make lawmakers and government agencies see things their way or look the other way. Pfizer has been found to engage in bribery, tax avoidance, and cover-ups regarding defective products. As the biggest pharmaceutical company in the world, Pfizer gets more than its fair share of hate, much of it well-deserved.

But this hasn’t kept Pfizer from giving back. The drug company gave approximately $93 million to charities in 2015 and more than $3 billion in medicines. Naturally, most of their cash donations go to health causes like eradicating diseases, increasing access to immunizations to needy populations, and making early health screenings available to more people.

6. Coca Cola

As the ill health effects of soda became common knowledge, Coca Cola’s image is increasingly under fire. But this year, reports were released that revealed that Coca Cola had been using its considerable financial might to push scientific studies that take the blame off soda and place them on lack of exercise — a deceptive move similar to those used by the sugar industry back in the 1970s.

What is a company that could potentially be blamed for the deaths of millions to do? Why, aggressively give back to communities, of course. Just in 2015, Coca Cola gave $117.3 million to charitable causes.

This money to thousands of nonprofits, boosting efforts to improve access to safe drinking water for populations in the third world, educate communities on hygiene, and grow education, arts, and environmental causes. They also put a considerable amount funding toward economic empowerment and entrepreneurship for women in less-developed nations.

7. Morgan Stanley

Let’s just say Wells Fargo isn’t the only major bank to pressure their employees to open customer bank accounts by fraudulent means. From 2014 to 2015, Morgan Stanley held sales contests targeting loans especially for wealthy clients and instantly creating a dangerous conflict of interest for employees that was against the bank’s own internal rules. They also received $10 billion in bailouts during the financial meltdown. Needless to say, Morgan Stanley has an image problem like so many other banks.

And they seem to be trying to rebuild customer trust and their brand image by giving back to charities — $62 million, to be exact. Most of their donations focus on efforts to solve pressing social problems. For instance, like Walmart, they partner with Feeding America and also donate their employees every year to volunteer at the nonprofit’s food banks. They’ll even lend out employees on a longer-term basis to act as pro bono consultants and help food banks run more efficiently and effectively.

Other causes that Morgan Stanley fund include fighting poverty in inner-city neighborhoods and hiring out employees to provide consulting to other nonprofits.

Grinches or Not?

So how should consumers views these companies who seem to give with one hand, while aggressively taking with their other hand? Are they Grinches or charity-loving do-gooders? Perhaps it’s no accident that the companies with the most egregious offenses also dole out the most to charities. At the corporate level, as much as one might want to believe that these are just unethical companies with hearts of gold, it’s much more likely that their charitable activities are well-calculated PR moves meant to gloss over these companies’ unsavory pasts.