Should employers push for employees to give to certain charities?

[bitkahuna]

Where I work they have this large United Way drive every year. I will say up front that I don't like anyone telling me what to do (blame my father), and I REALLY don't like my employer telling me I should contribute to a certain charity. I also believe the CEO reviews who contributed what.

What do you think about this? Personally I don't think a corporation should push a charity on ANYONE and certainly shouldn't make any judgements about whether they contribute or not because they have no idea what else that person does in time, deeds, or money.

Bah Humbug!

[WhiteTiger]

I agree with you bit. I have worked for a few companies that did/do this, also for the United Way and they tell you what should be your accepted level of giving. That is BS. I give to a number of charities each year that I selectively choose. The companies seem to fail to recognize this when making their "suggested" giving levels.

[mmarshall]

Well, all you Federal employees (like me) at CL undoubtedly go through the CFC(Combined Federal Campaign) every year....and we're right in the middle of it right now. While not actually overt or an obvious extortion, it is, with the quota system and the "percentage" goals, a more or less a de facto one. I'm not saying we shouldn't give. Most Federal people have a good salary, benefits, retirement, and job security.
We SHOULD do our share to help those in need, and many of us do so privately or through our churches. But the CFC "quota" system, IMO, can be interpreted as the subject of this thread....an employer "push".

[Vegassc400]

I've always thought it was a little odd for an employer to start pushing charities. It's more of a public image thing than anything. The company can boast it got all these donations for a charity, even though the employess were the ones making the contribution.

What was with the United Way? I remeber there were some serious problems in the mid 90's and the company I worked for couldn't get anyone to donate.

[J.P.]

DTE Energy is Michigan is like that.... I don't think you should have to and if you have to, no one should see how much!

[EmeraldLexuSC3]

Unless a Company is open to suggestions by their employees on how to run their business,
then I don not think they should have a say on how to run my life!!

[Lil4X]

In 1970, I was threatened with court-martial for refusing to give to Navy Relief. The charity was supposed to help needy Navy families, but the little known fact was that it only supported “career designated” sailors (i.e.: lifers). In my estimation this was wrong, because the young families of sailors on their first tour were really the needy ones – a had two friends E-4’s with under 4 years in service, whose families lived in poverty because their rank and time in service did not provide them a living wage. If you were an E-6 or better with ten years in service, you made a reasonable, if not a comfortable living. You were qualified for government housing too, which represented a huge savings.

Many of the E-6s and up whose families were on Relief either drank or gambled their paychecks away – their lack of responsibility was what put them in a bad financial position – but they had Navy Relief to bail them out. The younger sailors were mostly conscripts with wives and children who suddenly found themselves in the service and forced to feed, house, and clothe their young families on $130/month – which even back then couldn’t be done. I felt that Navy Relief while a noble idea, was only an enabling device for a bunch of old rumpots.

I had only a few weeks to go before my discharge date and our Division Officer decided his sailors were going to be 100% in donations to Navy Relief – he demanded $15 from each of us. I had developed a good case of “short-timer’s attitude”, and although we were at sea with nowhere to really spend money, I balked. I was called on the carpet, threatened with punishment up to and including court-marital, but I knew my legal rights and defied my superiors. I was mad enough to serve my last three weeks in the brig if I had to. They tried to shame me by making a big show of making up my $15 contribution out of “their” pockets (to which most of the money would be returned anyway). They never got a dime from me and I was mustered out when we returned to the States without further incident.

To this day, I have a real sore spot about “forced” contributions – whether I believe in the cause or not. I would suggest that anyone who faces a payroll deduction or any other sort of “strongarm” tactic to enforce contributions either take the company to court, or if you don’t want to risk your job, simply make a nice contribution to any charity you would like to support, get a receipt, and turn THAT into your company as your contribution.

[EmeraldLexuSC3]

Here's what you can do on your own!:

Don't wait for an invitation to give. Many donors don't give unless they're asked, which is why you get so many solicitations in the mail. But if you limit your contributions to charities that approach you, you'll overlook most non-profits, including some outstanding organizations. Only 9% of charities use telephone solicitation, according to the Center on Philanthropy study. Some 43% use direct mail, but most don't send mail to people who haven't given before.


•Develop a long-term relationship with charities. Many charitable appeals are designed to pull at your heartstrings, and you may be tempted to write a small check to assuage your guilt. But unless you plan to continue supporting that organization, you probably shouldn't bother, Rooney says. Many charities break even, or lose money, on fundraising campaigns in hopes of attracting long-term donors. If you make a small, one-time contribution, most of the money will probably go to the cost of that solicitation.


•Understand the cost of fundraising. Instead of focusing on ratios, look at how the charity raises money, the Center on Philanthropy suggests. If you buy a ticket for an elaborate fundraising dinner, the majority of your contribution may go toward the cost of the event. Likewise, buying products you don't want or need may not be an effective way to support a charity. Typically, only 10% to 20% of the proceeds go to charity.


•Research charities, but look at the whole picture. Don't focus solely on financial ratios. Find out how much its top officers make, and who serves on its board of directors. Some charities will provide data on the volume of work they do and offer examples of how the organization has made a difference.





You can find more information about charities at www.guidestar.org.

[DaveGS4]

I've been volunteered to participate in many United Way campaign and built the self service / back end interface part of the donation & campaign systems for these things for many clients. The ones I have seen are a mix of strongarm 'suggested giving levels' but specifically most companies are looking for 100 % participation. That doesn't mean you need to give, you just need to send in the card saying you don't want to give if that's the case.

A lot of people that don't want to give don't realize all the company is looking for is for you to tell them you don't want to participate. They get spun up and angry when all they need to do is push '0' into an email or webpage and push a button.

[bitkahuna]

Originally posted by DaveGS4
A lot of people that don't want to give don't realize all the company is looking for is for you to tell them you don't want to participate. They get spun up and angry when all they need to do is push '0' into an email or webpage and push a button.

Why can't no response be a clear enough signal people don't want to participate? No, the company wants employees to write 0 because they know many will feel guilty about it and end up giving all so the execs can say what great corporate community leaders they are. And you don't think those entries with 0 get 'judged' as far as career potential? I know they do. When I run a company, as I hope to, I will NEVER ask employees to donate to charity.

[DaveGS4]

Originally posted by bitkahuna
And you don't think those entries with 0 get 'judged' as far as career potential? I know they do.

Got to totally disagree here. I have never seen an organization provide executives or managers with a report of this type of detail. Certainly there can be recognition/annoucements/exposure for those that give high $$ amounts to charities (Chairmans Circle, de Toqueville, etc) or for those that partcipated in the charity drive. But I've yet to ever see any retribution. If that happened, I'd personally have to reconsider if that's the type of place I want to work.... not ethical.

[DaveGS4]

And now that I think more about it, I totally agree with you that the 'guilt' factor is the reason that companies like United Way and others measure organizations by 'participation percentages' rather than pure $$.

At the end of the day though, all that is being asked is that you push a button and send an email or click on a website or turn in a card. It's not confrontational... much less than the guy for the Salvation army ringing the bell with the kettle at the front of the grocery store. You have to choose to drop your change into the kettle or look him in the eye and walk past him.

There are a lot of people that would not ever donate to charities unless they were confronted with a request that requires them to make a yes or no decision. I personally chose to give to United Way, Arts & Sciences, etc because its the easiest and least painful way for me to make charitable donations via payroll deduction. I do choose specific charities via my local United Way. And I'd have no problems if somebody that worked for me didn't want to contribute or gave to something outside of the company-sponsored-method... as long as they just clicked that damn 'no thanks' button so we could get 100% participation and stop those annoying reminder emails .

[RON430]

Dave, I am kind of curious. Not trying to have you defend companies and their charitable contribution efforts, but why is 100% participation so important? I run a small business and I would never want to tell people what to do with their money let alone make it any part of my company's business to either facilitate or guilt their charitable giving. I try to pay a fair wage but most people are really struggling to make ends meet and they don't need me e mailing them to give some of it away. If they want to contribute to charities, great, but I am not going to force it. But I have been in a lot of companies with their "drives" going on and each department has a designated individual to insure 100% participation, and I have never heard that saying "no" was considered participation. I find this excessive, intrusive, and actually somewhat insulting.

For the first time this year we were approached by a local chapter of a professional society that had their funding from the national organization cut dramatically, they were in serious risk of having to cease operation. We helped them organize a business workshop, contributed a small amount to help underwrite costs, and I had four people help out during the workshop. The company paid everyone's salary during the time they were helping so no one was out of pocket anything. The workshop was very successful, the organization is now on good financial footing for at least a year, and my people feel very good about their part in it. I am fine with this but a large company making possibly hundreds of millions of dollars spending corporate resources to facilitate their employees making charitable contributions in order to get "100% participation" just rubs me the wrong way. Please don't misunderstand, I am not against charities or contibuting to a common good but, as gets mentioned a lot, I pay a lot of taxes for common good, both individual and corporate. But I sort of draw the line on using the company or my position to tell others what to do with their money. They earned it, they decide.

[DaveGS4]

Ron,

I'm sure somebody at the United Way came up with that idea as a way to get more people to respond. I've typically seen the 'participation' metric used at larger companies who automate their charity campaigns. Again, 100% participation is NOT telling anyone what to do with their money, it is simply asking them to respond whether they are going to give or not. I totally agree that is not clearly spelled out enough in most campaigns, but 'no thanks' is a valid answer... they just want to collect that answer to make sure you don't intend to donate but haven't got around to it (for those 50% of procrastinators like me). If it were the other way around and an employer was strong-arming folks to donate, I'd be against it as well.

I personally think its a good thing for companies to spend a bit of money to give their employees more flexibility and choice to donate to charities and the community. IMO all larger companies have a responsibility to the community both from a corporate perspective (public investments, safety awareness of their products, sponsorships, charities, etc) and by allowing access to their employees for charitable organizations like the United Way or Arts & Science councils.

I'm not blind to the issues that some local United Way chapters (or National) have either. I stopped donating for a couple of years here in NC due to the local chapters lack of transparency in reporting / accounting (made the news).

[RON430]

You know Dave, this is a tough topic. The older I get, the more I appreciate the help folks need in their lives. For some, it is a short term thing. For others, it can be extensive. But government can't (or doesn't want to) provide everything for everyone. I am definitely not against helping out. But I see a lot of companies with more resources than I have making big deals of their largesse because they allow charities access to their employees (which costs the company little) or they take their customers money and want kudos for doing charitable work with it, like a Microsoft. And maybe while I can understand the value of charities I also dislike the process and the "inefficiencies" in a lot of charities.

If my employees want to contribute to charities, I would do nothing to discourage it. I have to assume they would do it whether I provide a payroll deduction for it or not. But if a company or an employee decides not to participate, such as Target not wanting the shopping experience at their stores to be enhanced by Salvation Army bell ringers, I am comfortable wtih it. I think I can go back to bit's original posting and his displeasure. I have to say, once again, I believe the vast majority of people I have run in to at companies where United Way fund raisers are going on have no misunderstanding about 100% participation, they are expected to contribute. Exactly the same way as most defense contractors want employees to sign up for savings bonds - 100% and you are not viewed kindly if you decide not to help fund the federal debt that pays your company's bills not to mention your salary. Sure wish I could feel better about taking a harder position. It is a lot warmer and fuzzier to actively support charitable giving. But I won't present an image to my employees, real or imagined, that I or the company would require charitable giving. Just rubs me the wrong way. Big time.