AEI also ranked 10th in terms of grants received. Nearly all of the major corporate donors in America shy away from contributing to faith-based charities. There is no constitutional impediment to their making such grants. Nevertheless, GM gave only 2.3 percent of its gifts in 1997 to faith-based charities. Perhaps President Bush's emphasis on including faith-based organizations among those competing for government grants will alter this pattern.
Corporations are also highly vulnerable to intimidation and shakedowns.
Jesse Jackson has perfected the art. Jackson pulled the same stunt when SBC and Ameritech proposed to merge. The Capital Research Center found these corporate givers to be very secretive about their philanthropy. CRS had to resort to publicly available IRS data for most of its information. But shareholders are not so handicapped.