Philanthropy should be a planned effort to be most effective, says the United Way’s Doug Sawyer.

Philanthropy is a great way for companies to increase employee satisfaction, presuming they’re already reasonably satisfied with their pay. Philanthropy can enhance their image with customers and sometimes even boost bottom lines. Yet before plunging into charitable giving, businesses are advised to follow a few simple rules to make sure their new relationship with a nonprofit partner lives up to the expectations of both donor and recipient.

The first step, say officials with San Diego nonprofit agencies, is for company leaders to look inward and decide exactly where they want to contribute, with the goal of synchronizing their philanthropic activities with their business objectives.

“Often, there’s an alignment of the philanthropic program with the goals of the company… so it fits with what they are in business to do,” says Nancy Jamison, executive director of San Diego Grantmakers, a nonprofit advocacy group that educates local businesses on the ins and outs of effective giving.

“The first thing a company has to do is decide what they are interested in. To just go out randomly and give money doesn’t really help anybody,” says Doug Sawyer, president and CEO of United Way of San Diego County. “My recommendation would be for the company to do some research by themselves or in conjunction with a large entity in town, the San Diego Foundation or United Way, and through that match their goals and desires with specific agencies that could be recommended to them.”

Next, companies should make sure the program or group they’re supporting is on the up-and-up, and that their hard-earned treasure will be put to good use.

Make a personal connection with a charity before giving, advises Laura Deitrick of USD’s Caster Family Center for Nonprofit Research.

“Do your homework,” says Laura Deitrick, a research associate with the University of San Diego’s Caster Family Center for Nonprofit Research.

One place to start is online. A number of Web sites, such as guidestar.org and give.org (an offshoot of the Better Business Bureau), have databases full of useful information about specific nonprofits. Guidestar even includes nonprofits’ Internal Revenue Service 990 forms, which detail their income and expenditures, and contain salary information about staff members who earn more than $50,000 per year.

While such fiscal “snapshots” can be informative, say Deitrick and others, there is no substitute for visiting a charity in person. “Don’t just get to know the organization through paper, get to know them personally,” Deitrick says.

“There is nothing better than an actual on-site visit, checking out an agency and what they are doing,” agrees the United Way’s Sawyer.

Jamison, while concurring that site visits can provide valuable information, cautions that businesses don’t always have to conduct exhaustive research before making a charitable contribution. She says a company can start small, perhaps by sponsoring an event, and increase its support to an organization over time. As the size of the company’s donation increases, so will its need for due diligence, she says.

Bill Geppert, regional vice president for Cox Communications, is an expert on charitable giving from his work with Cox and the San Diego Foundation.

Bill Geppert straddles both the business and nonprofit sectors as regional vice president of Cox Communications and a board member of the San Diego Foundation.

Geppert advises companies to focus on their passions and, for some large companies, to find a reputable organization to manage their funds.

“You need to have someone managing that at arm’s length,” he says, so the company’s philanthropic efforts have the “trust and faith” of donors. The Cox Kids Foundation, which supports a variety of programs tied to education, children and families, is overseen by employee volunteers. The company matches money raised through employee donations and fundraising drives, and the San Diego Foundation invests and manages the Cox Kids Foundation’s assets.

The effort and expense of philanthropy can pay off in measurable ways, says Jamison of San Diego Grantmakers.

She cites research showing employees whose companies give back to the community have a higher level of job satisfaction, and the goodwill carries over to a company’s customer base. A study by New York University’s Stern School of Business found that sales increase $6 for every $1 that retailers, banks and popular goods manufacturers add to their giving budgets, notes Jamison.

San Diego companies with strong philanthropic programs agree that they benefit along with the recipients of their support.

Amylin Pharmaceuticals, a San Diego-based company that makes drugs to combat diabetes and other metabolic diseases, is a major supporter of the University of California at San Diego’s biotechnology programs, and also contributes to such organizations as the American Diabetes Association and the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.

Amylin specifically chose philanthropies related to its product, which increased employee motivation, says Julia Brown, adviser to the company’s CEO.

Amylin’s giving program motivates employees and “helps them believe in what the company stands for,” says Julia Brown, adviser to the company’s CEO. UCSD was “the logical place for us to start” when the company decided to support higher education, says Brown. “They generally are recognized as one of the most important universities in the world in terms of their influence in biotechnology.”

Among the programs Amylin supports at UCSD are a scholarship fund, a science lecture and education series and special events such as an annual 5k fundraising run. Amylin began its support of UCSD four years ago and has since expanded its giving to San Diego State University.

“The unifying theme is developing talent in one way or another” in the fields of math and science, both for the overall good of the community and to produce the skilled workforce Amylin and other science-based companies will need in the future, Brown says. “I would just encourage other companies to join in,” she says.

Amylin is in good company when it comes to philanthropy by San Diego firms. Sempra Energy, the parent company of San Diego Gas & Electric Co., budgets about 1 percent of its pre-tax operating income to philanthropy, which came out to $16.4 million in 2006, says Molly Cartmill, director of corporate community partnerships and executive director of the newly formed Sempra Energy Foundation. Sempra focuses its giving in such core areas as higher education, the environment, arts and culture, business and economic development, health and human services and community and civic leadership, says Cartmill, who has been with Sempra and SDG&E since the mid-1990s.

As executive director of the new Sempra Energy Foundation, Molly Cartmill leads a staff of 15 who evaluate 6,000 to 7,000 charitable funding proposals annually.

Cartmill oversees a staff of 15 who evaluate some 6,000 to 7,000 charitable funding proposals received by the company each year. For proposals submitted electronically, a Sempra computer program validates the agency’s nonprofit status before the proposal is seen by an employee.

The key is making sure the proposal is in line with the company’s philanthropic program goals for each subject area, which are published on its Web site. If the proposal meshes with company guidelines, Cartmill says, a staff member will contact the nonprofit to discuss its proposal and determine how Sempra can help.

“As the company grows, so too does our philanthropy,” Cartmill says.

San Diego’s October wildfires showed that the community puts its wallet where its heart is: more than $17 million flowed into the local American Red Cross chapter’s fire relief fund and another $6 million was given to the San Diego Foundation’s fire fund. But those in the nonprofit sector say the need for charitable giving remains constant long after the last of the fire’s embers has turned to ash.

“There are more nonprofits in need in San Diego than we have corporations giving,” says Jamison.