Get as good as you give; It's not business as usual, but Bank of America shows how strategic philanthropy can pay off for companies.

• Author: Parry, Amanda
• Position: FEATURE

Four years ago, Ken Lewis shouldered a shovel to move dirt and shape public opinion. Bank of America Corp.'s CEO helped plant 38 dogwood trees in Boston's Franklin Park, settling a Super Bowl bet with FleetBoston Financial's former boss after the New England Patriots beat the Carolina Panthers, who play their home games just a few blocks from BofA headquarters in down-town Charlotte. But the real payoff, he later told a forum sponsored by the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, was BofA's commitment "to making the communities where we do business economically healthy and inviting places to live, work and play."

Within the year, the bank gave $1.5 million to the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, $100,000 to the Pan-Massachusetts Challenge bike-a-thon and $1 million to Children's Hospital Boston. It was a series of what New Englanders call "wicked smart" moves. Two months before the tree-planting ceremony, BofA had completed the $47 billion acquisition of FleetBoston. Employees predicted layoffs. Community groups feared contributions would trickle south. Customers fretted that service would suffer and fees increase.

But like any skilled suitor, BofA knew what the object of its advances needed to hear: Don't think about what you're losing but what you're gaining, its gestures said. It had plenty of practice in wooing this way. For example, immediately after the 1998 merger with San Francisco-based Bank America, it unveiled what it called the largest charitable foundation in the U.S. financial-services industry, put 15,000 employees to work on volunteer projects and pledged a total of $1 million to 100 communities nationwide. Time and again, well-publicized good deeds helped pave its way to becoming the nation's second-largest financial institution. "They were hugely important," former CEO Hugh McColl says. "They helped us a great deal. No doubt about it."

BofA, of course, isn't the only company that uses philanthropy to sway public opinion, and it's not just for taking the sting out of acquisitions. Corporate giving and community-development programs attract customers, strengthen brand loyalty, improve employee morale and lessen the negative effects of scandal or crisis. Nationwide, corporations gave $12.7 billion to charity in 2006, up 30% from five years before, according to the latest statistics from Glenview, III. -based Giving USA Foundation. "Philanthropy in the '70s and '80s was still sort of a check-writing process, with the...