A research study of 48 United States corporate giving programs is described. The companies are generally large or mid-range in size and represent 15 different business and industry classifications. The size of their contributions programs ranged from $98,000 to $53 million in annual grants, with a median of $4.3 million. About three-fourths of the companies use a company foundation for at least a portion of their contributions. Two types of data were collected: (1) numerical information about the company and the contributions program, including dollar contributions in each of the last several years, contributions as a percent of the corporation's pretax net income, and the size of the contributions staff; and (2) narrative information obtained from interviews with contributions managers about how decisions are made, examples of grants recommended by staff but not finally approved, and examples of grants considered to be most creative. Also considered are procedures used to establish annual giving, along with components of program excellence; and program management and character (nature of grants and program size in relation to the size and resources of the business). The role of the company's chief executive office, and five management styles of the contributions program manager are also considered. (SW)