I don’t believe any federal agencies (including DoD) participate in the United Way. They use the CFC instead.
BTW, I experienced similar strong-arm tactics from the CFC reps when in the service. I knew a Chief Petty Officer in the Navy who received a personal award for the level of participation he achieved. People contributed just to get the guy off of their backs. He’s probably a telemarketer today… :rolleyes:
Some fairly prestigious employers DO pull that shit. I’ve worked one place that did, during the early 80’s, and I’ll name it - Bell Labs. I’m not sure it would impact your reviews, but they did put the pressure on.
A guy I worked with there did something which illustrated just what their attitude was about it. UW’s donation card gave you the ability to check some individual charities rather than making an overall donation. He put out an article on one of the employee newsgroups which explained how UW did their accounting, and why checking those boxes really didn’t have any effect in the end, as opposed to just making a blanket donation. He wasn’t critical - it was a very neutrally worded factual explanation. He got in tons of hot water and had his posting privileges revoked.
For someone who is pretty much shackled to their job and wants to avoid employer harrassment as well as avoid contributing to charities of which one disapproves, there is a method alluded to above.
For the majority of UW charities, the actual money is allocated long before the drive starts (which is how they come up with their target number). When they come around and say that you can “choose” a specific charity (or exclude a specific charity), the standard form you fill out will not affect the amount of your money that goes to either group. Since fewer than 10% of the people who contribute ever indicate preferences, they simply throw all the money in a pot and disburse it according to their pre-campaign determinations. If you ask where “your” money went, they will simply say it was part of the pre-selected funds that were given to your choice (or among the funds that were not given to your choice for exclusion).
However, there are affiliate charities, not under the UW umbrella, to which the UW will contribute only if the funds are earmarked. So if you specify that you want your money to go to The Association For The Distribution Of Straight Dope, all your money will go directly to TAFTDOSD and you will not have to worry that your money is inadvertantly supporting the NAACP, NAAWP, Abortion Rights or Right To Life groups (and your employer gets off your back). Unfortunately, in order to use this method, you have to dig around on your own to discover the affiliate groups. The UW has a vested interest in collecting money for their big clients and they do not always hand out the list of “only on request” recipients very cheerfully.
Given that this forum is GQ and not IMHO, I think you owe the readers of this thread some more concrete information.
How do you define an “Abortion rights” organization? What makes one “extreme?” as opposed to, well, run of the mill? How does the “California arm” of the United Way force an organization to change its policies?
FWIW, I can provide a pretty contrary example. I live in one of the more liberal cities in the Midwest. The only Community Fund agency that has anything to do with pregnancy in our local United Way has is Catholic Social Services in its community fund. Part of their mission is pregnancy and adoption counseling, and you can safely bet they aren’t pro-abortion. Several other agencies provide support for teen parents.
The only other agency that has anything to do with pregnancy (wanted or unwanted) is Planned Parenthood, and they are not part of the Community Fund. You have to designate to them specially. Same with the Boy Scouts, incidentally.
The United Way does not “replace” your fuinding with someone else’s. Money that goes into the community fund is split among the organizations. If your dollars aren’t in there, everyone gets less. If you designate specially, certain agencies get more. They don’t cook the books.
There are plenty of reasons to object to the United Way as a fund-raising organization, but I am not yet convinced that one of them is their sneaky liberal ‘agenda.’ You seem to have knowledge that would indicate otherwise, so I am asking you to provide more detail.
I do not believe that they cook the books. However, for this claim to be true, a huge percentage of donors would need to specify a charity.
Limited example for illustration:
UW sets aside $10 for Joe’s Charity and $150 for Bill’s Charity before the drive.
They get the following breakdown of donations:
Mr. A: $3 – specifies all money to Joe’s Charity
Ms. B: $5
Mr. C: $15
Ms. D: $20
Mr. E: $5 - specifies all money to Bill’s Charity
Ms. F: $5
Mr. G: $2
Ms. H: $4
Mr. I: $3
Ms. J: $50 - Specifies NO money to Joe’s Charity
Mr. K: $25
Ms. L: $35
Mr. M: $6
Ms. N: $20
Mr. O: $10
Ms. P: $1
The UW gives the money from Mr. A, Mr. G, and Ms. F to Joe’s Charity and the money from Mr. E, Ms. J, Mr. C, Ms. D, Mr. K, and Ms. L to Bill’s Charity, then divides the rest up between the two. Everyone who has directed their money (typically a tiny fraction of the total donors) has had their wishes satisfied and the original numbers are not damaged in any way.
The only way the the UW will ever run into a problem would be if some huge percentage of the donors either specify Joe’s Charity or “Not” Bill’s Charity. Given the hundreds of services who are recipients in real life vs the miniscule number of specified charities on the donor cards, the numbers are never an issue.
Yep. Bragging rights. The company can then take out ads showing that they are a “people” company whose whole complement of employees are dedicated to “the community.”
I guess what I am trying to say is that the United Way won’t say “Oh, damn, Cranky screwed the Kidney Foundation again” and then proceed to go into the pool of undesignated funds and give the KF a little more to make up for my decision. That’s what LemonThrower seemed to be suggesting with “However, what is to stop them from just replacing your gift with someone elses?” I think that’s a misrepresentation of what happens with funding.
I designate all of my gift to be split between two charities or charity pools which aren’t in the community fund. There is no way the United Way can wave a magic wand and make more money appear to give to the community agencies to make up for my designation. And since they don’t give any undesignated funds to those charities of my choosing, there is no chance of them “reducing” their share to balance out the effect of my gift.
Just as the advice to learn the facts about your local agency, also consider the possibility that specific strong-arm tactics are the result of individuals with a strong-arm leadership style, not how the United Way or other agencies want or require their campaigns to be run. People who are asked to run the United Way campaign at an employer are often given that assignment as a way for them to practice leadership skills, or because no one else wants the assignment, so their individual approach may color your experience.
Also, sometimes 100% participation means “everyone completes and returns a card,” not “everyone gives money.” If your company is actually factoring your giving into your performance appraisal, I’d be surprised. OTOH, loud and public criticism of the campaign to your work peers probably would not be well perceived. Companies want community oriented employees, but not as much as they need productive employees.
I have the answer. Not to sound smug or anything, but I really do feel good about my solution to “giving to charity.”
Every week, I donate a TON to the United Way indirectly. I volunteer for one of those organizations that falls under the UW “umbrella” – The Big Sister/Big Brother organization.
At first, I had some qualms about this, since I don’t know if the UW solicits funds or moves money around based on the number of volunteers.
However, I think of it this way: You’re never going to know where your money goes, but you sure as heck know what you’re doing with your TIME. You KNOW it’s being spent wisely and used correctly. And you choose the level of your own morality that you apply to it.
Every weekend I spend time with a child in my community who could use a mentor (what child can’t?). She loves it, I get more out of it than she does, and as far as I know the United Way doesn’t see hide nor hair of me. And I can affect my little sister any way I choose – within reason, of course.
The UW must fund Big Sister to some extent because they do have parties for groups of Bigs and Littles and they get activity tickets donated quite a lot.
Previous to this “project” I worked in crisis counseling and helped domestic abuse and sexual assault victims through the process of evidence collection, court, etc.
No, I’m not do-gooder: I just think my time is better used than my money ever could be. I don’t trust corporate ANYTHING.