I never minded charitable fundraising campaigns at work, at least how my previous employer did it. You could contribute to any charity you wanted to (as long as it was recognized by the IRS), but if you contributed through their campaign the company made a matching donation.
What makes me uncomfortable is political fundraising at work. I currently fork for a federal contractor, and being federal contractor means the company is forbidden by law from any political lobbying whatsoever. But it’s perfectly legal for the company’s employees to engage in political lobbying and make political contributions. So they try to encourage employees to contribute to the [Company] Employee PAC, a political action committee that, as they describe it, lobbies for the interests of the company. It’s not particularly high pressure, pretty much just a company-wide email every now and then, but I still don’t really like it.
Boy, howdy. Dunning enlisted personnel who barely make enough to live on is just wrong. When I gained seniority, I was expected to go to all my troops and ask them individually if they wanted to donate to CFC. What I did instead was announce it once at morning quarters and if someone decided to look for more information, they could come see me. I don’t remember anyone doing that.
My company has always been HUGE on charitable giving. Sadly, in the bad old days, there was a lot of strong-arming goin’ on. The whole UW implosion was the rancid cherry on the shit sundae. Fortunately, they learned their lesson, and while they’re still big on charitable giving, they dumped UW and started an internal “Employee Contributions” group.
But what made it fine for me was that your donations could be to any organization you wanted as long as it was a 501c3. I donated to the Dachshund Rescue org where I adopted three of my dogs.
Soliciting donations in the workplace, especially for those fucking scumbags at United Way, is insanely inappropriate. I worked at one place where I was one of two hold outs out of a couple hundred and those assholes relentlessly hounded me because 100% was so important to them. I had to escalate to HR to get it to stop and they were forced to change tactics the next year.
And if a charity passes muster one year that doesn’t mean the next year it’ll still be worthy.
SNL humor moment:
I think many people are happy to give to charities but damn! You can’t count on the money going where you think it’s going. Every year we’re supposed to vet these things?
Absolutely, but so far the repercussions have been “they’ll be less inclined to renew my contract” or “they’ll think less of me,” not “they will fire me” or anything really tangible.
It’s never felt completely optional (“hey, here’s something happening, take it or leave it”) the way an invitation to go out to dinner (which would also be a cost) might feel.
When I was in the USAF damn right I did, and it wasn’t because of any feeling-we were outright told that not participating in some way would influence evaluations.
Sounds like you may, tomorrow. I keep it to a “nope”. Poor clerk gets enough grief daily, so I generally keep my preferred tirade of “The store should round down and donate that” to myself.
I agree with you 100 percent. I believe it’s outrageous and immoral for an employer to even suggest, not to mention ask, that employees spend their wages or time or effort in any particular charitable manner. Any message I get regarding such efforts is promptly ignored by me.
