Community Impact Rankings Methodology

The inaugural edition of Morning Consult’s Community Impact Rankings surveyed 330,488 across the U.S. to provide an in-depth view of which companies, organizations and brands having a positive impact on American communities. The data comes from Morning Consult Brand Intelligence.

The 2017 rankings included over 800 brands and were determined by online surveys conducted July 15 through Oct. 15 among a national sample of adults who were asked to indicate whether they thought a brand had a positive or negative impact on their local community. Between 10,000 and 115,000 adults rated each company, and the results have a margin of error between 0.3 and 1.0 percentage point.

The survey contained three principal sections: company evaluations, demographics and political tracking. Respondents began by answering broad demographic questions. They then viewed a short battery of political tracking questions, which are included to help validate results. Next, respondents evaluated a randomized set of brands across a range of questions such as favorability, community impact and purchasing intent. The survey concluded with an additional set of demographic questions.

How we determined the standout brand in every state

Morning Consult compared the top 100 companies in every state to their national percentages. The brands shown had the highest positive deviation from the national average in each state.