From the CNN article:
As an employee, I’d be irritated by it, not because I would ratehr keep the money (of course I would), but because I don’t need the pain in the ass of having to go and videotape myself donating it smewhere. If the bank wants to donate money to charity, that’s fine, but involving the employees like this is just a stunt.
Incidentally, if the employees have to give all the money away anyway, then why give the full and part time employees different amounts?
Oh, and if this was done in lieu of a Christmas bonus, I’d be pissed.
I don’t like the “video documentation” part of it at all. Much better to just appoint a committee of employees to make anonymous donations to selected people/charities. This smacks more of a publicity stunt than anything else.
By the way, if I had to pick a cause, I’d pick medical marijuana.
Have they supplied each employee with a video camera?!
I like the idea personally but I accept that it’s not for everyone. I just sent a $50 kiva.org gift certificate to a friend for Christmas. I know she’ll be as pleased to receive it as I would be. But no one else on my list is getting that kind of gift because they wouldn’t feel the same way.
From the article:
It does seem here to be in lieu of a traditionally given profit sharing scheme so I agree the forced march sucks. It’d be better if the bank divided up it charitable giving budget instead.
lol what a load of crap. I would pocket the cash or tell them todo there won charity.
OR i would claim that me at the pub is a good enought charity!
Just get your brother to dress up as some homeless dude…
If its not a solely a publicity stunt, how did CNN get wind of it?
I would’ve just said that I donated the money to The Human Fund.
Good publicity for the bank.
Good for the community.
Helps people.
Makes employees feel good.
Get over it.
I’d make a donation to The Human Fund.
I’d say giving them the money to do it is borderline.
Asking them to videotape it, though- stupid stunt.
I beat you by six minutes. 
Damn. I didn’t read all the posts before I wrote that.
I’d have two problems with that. First, I don’t own a video camera, nor do I have any desire to own one. (Yes, I could borrow one.) Second, I believe it’s tacky and somewhat sinful to draw attention to one’s charitable giving. I actually take this so seriously that when I participate in one of those “Buy a Shamrock to Help [whatever]” campaigns, I don’t put my name on it. To me, the purpose of giving to charity is to help others, not draw attention to myself or show off how unselfish I am.
If the company wants to do something to increase its charitable donations by using its employees, why not have a food or clothing drive, instead? That way, people can donate according to what they’re willing and able to do.
Also, to a part-time employee, $500 could make a real difference in the budget. If money’s tight, the temptation to use a month’s rent to pay the rent or groceries or buy a few more presents for the kids could be rather great. After all, being forced to give $500 away when you’re eating ramen noodles and using coupons can seem a bit rough. I suspect that’s why the bank wants video-taped evidence, but it still seems a bit rough on the employees.
Have they thought about donations to The Human Fund of Rio?
The requirement for a video might make some of the employees distribute the money in ways that make better video but don’t do as much good. If I were given $1000 to give to charity, I would go online, research some causes and charities, and then donate online to them. That might do a lot of good, but it’s going to be a snoozer of a video. It would be tempting to instead do something that will make for more interesting video like get the money in cash and give it out to homeless people, even if that’s probably not going to do as much good for the community as something like making an online donation to the county food bank.
Wonder who gets the tax writeoff for ‘charitable contributions’…
Stunt - perhaps with good intentions - possibly even with (some) good results - but a stunt none the less.
Oh, like Duuude, is today the 32nd of June? I, like, think we have to do something by today. Oh man, Sponge Bob totally punkd, that shark. Any Oreos left?