I love UW – the lazy man’s way to charitable giving. And frankly, I’m lazy enough that if it weren’t for UW, I wouldn’t give anything at all. Around my workplace, there are no pressure tactics. Everything is handled very efficiently over email – takes two minutes There’s no department-level involvement at all that I can see.
The thing that shocks me is how little we (collectively) give. It comes to about $4 per employee per year.
The past couple of years, our employer has switched to an e-mail notification with a URL for giving. Very low-key. I give because the P/R deduction is easy. I do designate a neo/post-natal social service org but I am aware that probably won’t change their award since enough other people probably don’t designate it. It’s a place I would donate to anyway.
Same at my company. Our local United Way goes to extraordinary length to publish their costs and have numerous volunteer finance committees looking over their books. The pass through rate is around 92% - 93% (off the top of my head) and it’s one of the better rates in the nation.
I work for the Commonwealth. Instead of United Way, we have SECA (State Employee Combined Appeal), which is essentially the same thing. And every year, I put a big “X” through my pledge sheet and hand it back in. I am NOT a team player, and nobody’s going to walk away with an award for 100% participation in a forced guilt charitable run while I’m working for them. I contribute on my own schedule to my own chosen charities. I contribute in order to give back to the communities that I derived (and derive) benefits from, not to earn my supervisors a plaque.
I worked at one large corp, and every Sept we were given the choice pay $25 to UW to be able to wear jeans every Friday until the end of the year. I must admit, I was weak and each year I ponied up for that. (Hey, it’s Ohio, and winter is DAMN cold for folks l like me who would be in pantyhose and a skirt, with a one-mile walk in a foot of snow to the building form the parking lot. Literally.)
New large corp I work at now said we could pay $20 EVERY FRIDAY to UW, for 5 weeks only, for the privelege of wearing jeans. My parking lot walk is a hell of a lot closer, so I declined. 
At least both of these scenarios were not FORCED upon me, I had the option to decline.
This old thread from a few years ago needs to be linked. It may seem like everyone hates the UW but there is a True Believer in there. Scary stuff.
The only time my father got a pink slip in pilot training was when he refused to donate to the United Way (this was late 1960s).
You used to be able to designate ANY charity, not just the ones on the United Way list. The NRA used to send out to its members the code to have your donation go to them. It was a great way for people to participate in the campaign, yet funnel their money directly to a charity of their choice withOUT risking the fungibility issue that other posters have mentioned. I do not know if that is still possible.
If you’re looking for datapoints, my local UW has a 16% overhead. 84% of the money goes to the charities.
I just looked this up because I work for a local non-profit that sent me the form to donate to UW yesterday (entirely voluntary) – which allows us to designate our money to go back to our non-profit if we so wish. :dubious:
Wow. You mean it’s a government?
Before the web and other more efficient means of raising money, the United Way made a lot of sense. It was very expensive for a small non-profit to fund raise, and often there was a lot of competition between non-profits at key times. The United Way served to be a clearing house for fund raising. The Non-profits would not need to staff their fundraising arm, and the United Way would then do all of the fundraising and distribute it. This might allow for a higher percent of money to actually go to the cause instead of going to overhead.
Then the United Way got BIG. The bosses wanted to paid like their private sector peers. Corruption stepped in (see multiple examples with a little Google work). Some non-profits became dependant on the United Way, and then the United Way would drop them (or reduce their funding). The internet made it easier to donate directly. Phone calls got cheaper. Email blasts are effectively free. Online donations are simple. Software makes it easier for a small shop to raise money, track spending, and give documentation.
In My Humble Libertarian Donor Opinion (IMHLDO?), the United Way is no longer needed by many, and has grown corrupt due to its size.
I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again. If you wish to give to a specific charity, please don’t give it to the UW. I get checks from them periodically and yes, they do take a substantial sum out of it. Not to mention, they send them on their own schedule, so sometimes we don’t see it for months.
I just checked and ours is 85%.
Thanks, that was my thread too, and yes, there is a scary individual in there whi just can’t understand why we don’t all just bend over and take it from the UW.
Heh…if that’s the one where a certain someone’s husband was in charge of the campaign, I remember it well. All kinds of headbutting going on in that thread.
As was mentioned it is a shell game. Lets say that the United Way wants to give 3% of the cash they take in to a specific charity. Unless more than 97% of the donations are tagged “don’t give to them”, then they still get exactly the same amount. Since enough people don’t tag them at all, you effectively have no say where your money goes. It will go to the groups you support as well as the ones you oppose, with possibly a greater percentage going to the ones you oppose.
That’s a con… the only way the charities get their specified donations is if the amount of the earmarked donations totals up to MORE than they would have gotten from the United Way anyway.
I hate that we have it here, but like ThatDuckIsEvil’s company, we can pay $25 to wear jeans every day between Thanksgiving and Xmas and starting this year, they’re adding the option to pay another $25 to wear jeans for the month of January. So I ponied up the $50. It’s worth it in the winter.
Last year, I felt pressured too because if we got to 70% participation they would give us the day after Thanksgiving off. I didn’t want to be the person who kept us from having an extra vacation day, especially when we got near the end and they were just a few people away from making it. So this year instead of waiting to feel the peer pressure on that one, I gave early. And then they said there wouldn’t be the day-after-TDay incentive. Now I feel like I got screwed on this. Even more than usual.
That is why I said the NRA (or the Boy Scouts for that matter). Since the United Way does not support them at all, you can designate them and ensure that your money flows.
it would be better to directly give, but if you are in a career position where you HAVE to donate (or risk negative career consequences that will never be directly tied to your donation role), then doing the designation thing might work for you.
Now THAT’S pressure!..If you give enough you are allowed to wear clothes warm enough to survive the winter. :mad:
Oh yeah, that’s the one… you might as well argue with the Borg.