A paragraph from a news
The article is about contain. There is one paragraph which I don't understand well.

"Corporations, or businesses, gave $17.7 billion. That is five percent of the total money donated. Ms. Sweeney says those numbers suggest philanthropic, or charity, giving is not of great importance for many U.S. corporations."

First part of the paragraph is okay, but the following sentences are quite vague.

Question

A paragraph from a news
The article is about contain. There is one paragraph which I don't understand well.

"Corporations, or businesses, gave $17.7 billion. That is five percent of the total money donated. Ms. Sweeney says those numbers suggest philanthropic, or charity, giving is not of great importance for many U.S. corporations."

First part of the paragraph is okay, but the following sentences are quite vague.

Answer

$17.7 billion is only 5% of the amount or total that Americans donated to charity.  (The first paragraph says the total is $358 billion.) Money donated to charity is "philanthropic" or "charity" giving. Since the percentage that corporations donated to charity was only 5% of the total, Mrs Sweeney thinks that corporations probably do not place much importance on donating money to charity.