Abstract:
There is currently no regulatory body or organized civil rights group that monitors the materiality of the cost of
corporate philanthropy (CP) which has created a gap that is being exploited by many corporates to make no or
insignificant donations to the public which is a potential source of conflict between the society and corporates. The
current research has imported the auditing concept of quantitative audit materiality and applied it in the field of CP
to test the materiality or significance of corporate philanthropy by listed firms in Kenya during the year 2013 with
intention to monitor the significance of corporate philanthropy by Kenyan corporates. Purposive sampling
technique was employed to select 16 out of 62 listed firms in Kenya where there was cost of corporate philanthropy
reported by the firms. Descriptive statistical analysis and paired samples t-test were employed to analyses for
significant or materiality of corporate philanthropy. The overall findings indicated that Kenyan firms made
immaterial corporate donations with respect to their profit before tax (PBT). The study thus recommends for
enactment of regulations to govern the matter of corporate donations in Kenya.
