Planned Parenthood is an incredibly wealthy organization. In 2022 alone , the company brought in nearly two billion dollars. Some came from normal operating revenue, but over 35% came from government funding. A similar amount, around 36%, comes from individual and corporate donations.
Ending taxpayer funding of Planned Parenthood is a very popular issue, and not just because of abortion. Frequent controversy over trade of fetal body parts, financial abuse, and covering up sexual abuse has made taxpayer funding for the company very unpopular. What gets less attention is the private and corporate funding that makes up a third of Planned Parenthood’s income.
In the past, some newsgroups and websites have compiled lists of Planned Parenthood’s donors, but these lists are often incomplete or incorrect. Information about donations is often hard to track down, and even harder to keep updated. This is further complicated by Planned Parenthood misinforming people about their donors. Because of this, it’s difficult for anyone to get a clear picture of what companies actually support Planned Parenthood.
When facing long lists of the many businesses supporting Planned Parenthood are published, people may feel powerless. It’s hard to know what to do with that information, and pro-lifers can feel isolated. Planned Parenthood itself pushes this narrative to make themselves seem more popular. In the past, they have placed companies that have no relationship with them on their lists of supporters or exaggerated their relationship with certain companies.
For example, Planned Parenthood included Coca-Cola, Ford, and Xerox on their supporters page, when in reality, none of these three companies had ever donated to Planned Parenthood. Another example: Planned Parenthood has misleadingly listed the American Cancer Society as a supporter, when the ACA’s support was limited to programs for cancer control .
In addition, many of the companies that donate to Planned Parenthood aren’t doing so because the company itself supports them, but because of employee gift matching programs to non-profits. This obviously is still a problem, but a problem having less to do with the companies themselves and more with the people they employ.
With businesses in the US totaling in the millions , even just a list of the largest corporations that support Planned Parenthood will be extensive. But these companies can be more easily influenced than you might think. Many already have reconsidered their position on Planned Parenthood. If enough pressure is applied, many others are likely to do the same.
Because Planned Parenthood lies, and the list of their supporters changes often, it’s difficult to stay up to date on what groups fund Planned Parenthood. There are also many different ways in which companies fund Planned Parenthood, some more direct than others. Nevertheless, there are a number of groups that are dedicated to finding out which groups are funding or supporting Planned Parenthood. Between them, we can get a fairly good look at the kinds of groups that support Planned Parenthood, broken down into categories.
Direct donations represent companies’ intentional decisions to fund Planned Parenthood. These donations are not a result of employee giving or matched charitable giving (indirect donations), instead being direct corporate giving. These donations constitute a massive portion of Planned Parenthood’s funding.
The following list is compiled from 3 sources. These sources are 2ndVote, which maintains one of the most in depth and detailed lists of companies and their financial giving, eVALUEator, a faith-based investing group, and Partners for Ethical Care, a secular group promoting ethical child healthcare. Companies present in multiple lists are only displayed in the first list.
While these companies may seem unlikely to listen to public pressure to cease donations to Planned Parenthood, pressure has worked in the past. Many lists of Planned Parenthood supporters that have been widely circulated, such as those by eVALUEator, have caused many companies to stop funding of Planned Parenthood.
While the leadership of many companies may choose to directly support Planned Parenthood, a significant part of corporate funding comes from gift matching programs. In other words, if an organization’s employees donate to nonprofits or charities, the organization will match their donations.
Different companies can have different policies as to what organizations qualify for gift matching. Often, because of its status as a nonprofit, Planned Parenthood qualifies by default. Sometimes, however, groups must be explicitly approved.
While less direct, gift matching still constitutes a solid chunk of corporate funding for Planned Parenthood. This funding is hard to stop because it reflects much less on the companies themselves than on their employees. However, these companies can also become more willing to end their gift matching to Planned Parenthood if encouraged to do so.
This list is compiled from 2ndVote and Planned Parenthood’s own list of employee-sponsored giving. It is worth noting that in the past, Planned Parenthood has lied about corporate donors or misrepresented them, so their list of donors may not be entirely accurate.
Another common way that companies help fund Planned Parenthood is through hosting fundraising events, selling their products and giving part of the profit to Planned Parenthood. Other companies will hold events for Planned Parenthood representatives to drum up support.
The lists below are again drawn from 2ndVote and eVALUEator’s databases, but may not be as complete.
Many companies that don’t directly fund Planned Parenthood support abortion in other ways. One good example of this is paying for employees to get abortions, either the procedures themselves or the travel costs. The list below comes from CBS News:
Another example of indirect funding of abortion is coverage of abortion supporters’ bail costs. Currently, there are two companies that have publicly stated that they will cover bail costs of any employees arrested while protesting in support of abortion or Planned Parenthood. These two companies are Patagonia and Live Nation . Whether this has actually ever happened, however, is unclear.
When trying to get any group to change its behavior, it’s important to identify what levers we can reasonably pull to make a difference. The most obvious of these levers is simply to not do business with these companies. Not only do boycotts apply financial pressure, but often they threaten a company’s reputation as well–even when a company seems too big to be influenced.
Nevertheless, these lists of Planned Parenthood’s corporate supporters can leave readers feeling discouraged. These companies are a major part of people’s lives, and unavoidable at times. They are the stores where we buy our food, the materials or services we need for our jobs, or the companies we work at. For some people, it is simply unrealistic to avoid all of these companies.
Whether you can or cannot boycott, however, there are other ways to have an impact as well. We can change what organizations we invest in, which applies another kind of pressure. Such an action would include altering personal 401k plans, or even taking larger actions as a shareholder of a company.
In addition to shareholder pressure, employee pressure can also help. Particularly for companies that are funding Planned Parenthood solely through gift matching, this is a good way to cut off donations at their source. Whether you are an employee, or can help inform others, it can be a good way to create change from within.
As part of this, it’s important to remember that a company’s decisions are ultimately made by individuals within that company. Communicating with them as a rea sonable and relatable voice is sometimes all it takes. Many of these individuals truly are just unaware of the numerous controversies surrounding Planned Parenthood. By suggesting less controversial alternatives to Planned Parenthood, we may sometimes convince companies to change their behavior.
One of the most important things in any movement is to be persistent. Things will not change in a day. Not all companies may be willing to stop supporting Planned Parenthood, and some won’t change no matter what we do. But every bit of progress we make on issues like this contributes to saving lives and cutting down on the power and influence of organizations like Planned Parenthood.
