AbstractPlace is omnipresent in corporate philanthropy, yet it is becoming paradoxically more and less salient at the same time. Viewing corporate philanthropy as a global yet localized phenomenon, current research is fraught with tension between sense of place and placelessness. To specify boundary conditions and add accuracy to our knowledge, we systematically review articles published in well‐regarded business and management journals and unearth the important role of place in corporate philanthropy. We show that place is manifested in a variety of forms, including geographic units, critical events and virtual platforms, and these manifestations are associated with firms’ experience of place as a social enclosure, political constellation and peer community. We find that place has three primary roles in affecting corporate philanthropy: socializing, rationalizing and learning. Our findings have significant implications for new scholarly directions that can extend our understanding of the place–corporate philanthropy nexus.