I assume an umbrella charity is sort of like the United Way, organizing the collection and distributing the proceeds to individual charities. They will definitely be taking their slice of the pie, someone has to pay these workers. The individual charities in my case are just listed by themselves as options, and my money goes straight to them. There are other charities listed as “funded through the United Way” and there are also United Way chapters listed as options, like the United Way of Rochester, or some such thing.
There isn’t anything inherenly wrong with a charity taking their cut off the top to organize collection, if they didn’t, the individual charities would have to use their own money to do so. It’s possible that there are efficiencies to gain if charities group together for collection efforts, resulting in more net dollars going to charity. This is totally separate from the United Way being wasteful or criminal in their use of charity money, of course.
And that’s what it boils down to in the end. I understand this point of view, but I won’t pretend that I agree with it, for reasons that I have already stated. It’s a smiple matter of opinion. I disagree with their stance, and others disagree with my husband’s actions.
Look, it’s his fucking job to get people to donate through work. His opinion is whether or not what you do on your personal time is “good enough” is completely irrelevant. He’s not the Charity Police-- he’s just trying to meet the goals which were set by his boss.
I’ll be honest, both of us have a low opinion of those who just refuse to donate to charity-- those with the “fuck 'em” attitude. Yeah, it’s their right. It’s also my right to think they’re jerks.
Oh, for crying out loud! Trust me, that’d be the last reason anyone would fail to lodge a complaint. This is the state. Filing complaints is a recreational pastime. The reason why no one has filed is because they know it would be an exercize in futility.
He doesn’t make up the programs, you know. Your beef is with the system, not my husband. He’s just doing his job, as he was told to do, and putting a hell of a lot of effort into doing it well.
For those who are discussing the umbrellas, there are also independant charities which are not under any umbrella organization, particularly the local charities, to which 100% of the money donated goes directly.
The simple fact is that some people will not contribute to a workplace charity drive on principle. You can disagree with this…that is your right.
However, the attitude that if they’re not contributing to a workplace charity drive, then they’re not giving at all and should be considered unutterable scum who don’t deserve to share the air that you breathe is wrong. Because it’s not accurate. Again, not giving to fund drives at work != not giving.
This is the point in contention, because you keep stating things that contradict it. Over and over, you’ve been told that some people prefer to give privately and semi-anonymously. Over and over, you come back with the assumption that those people are inferior because they’re not giving where they can be watched and counted. Over and over, those people (myself included) begin to get irritated with your attitude about this. Over and over, you repeat your position and defend your husband. This argument is going nowhere.
As I said before, a couple of times, actually-- I’m sure that there are people who give generously of their time and money outside the workplace.
Fair enough.
That’s not my attitude at all. I said that I was sure that there were some that gave in other areas-- probably gave very generously.
You’re right, it’s not. I don’t think it really can go anywhere. It’s a simple matter of difference in opinion.
My position is that the employees should have participated in the drive even if they give elsewhere (or at least used state time to particpate in charitable activities) because of the close ties we have with community services and the need for the public to see that we care. Most of all, because it was a good cause. What was asked is very little in comparison to the benefits we get from these services.
He used directed tactics. Instead of just passing around a list and hoping for the best, he asked people directly. Some may disagree with this tactic but it proved to be successful. If some little kid gets a warm coat this winter, or has hot food in his belly because of my husband’s efforts, I’d say that’s well worth some people getting huffy.
Ah, he’s only following orders. Well, there’s a waterproof excuse if I ever heard one.
Lissa, I’d be running away from any job where someone in authority would “look me in the eye and ask them to evaluate their life in comparison to a more needy person”. Don’t you get how incredibly fucking arrogant that is ? “Obviously, you’ve never considered the plight of those less lucky, so let me enlighten you…”
Your husband’s employees have every right to have their “no thanks” respected and it’s not his (or yours) business to speculate on why they say no.
Yeah, I’d probably slip your husband the $2 if it was what it took to not have him gazing into my eyes while he delivered his lecture on morality. It’d be worth it to get out of his sights. My resume would certainly be in a lot of inboxes the day after. And I’d feel completely justified in making an effort to make up the $2 in office supplies. If my manager is using his position to look good on somebody else’s buck, surely turnaround is fair play ?
You keep saying this, but I’ll bet that if you asked 100 people “Do you give a damn if civil servants spend their time and energy in meaningless PR campaigns to show that they “care” or would you rather have them spend that time and energy actually doing their jobs, so that (say): the line at the DMV was shorter, or your tax refund got back to you faster or your social security question got answered in a shorter amount of time?”, the overwhelming majority would say “We’re a fucking captive audience. Govenment workers have a monopoly. Stop advertising and get back to work!”
And you still haven’t explained why it’s an employee’s responsibility to pay for their company’s PR gestures.
I have a grand idea. Why don’t Lissa’s husband’s employers just lay him off, donate his entire salary to the charities they support and then they can stop hounding the other employees for their donations? That way, everyone wins…they get to brag about how much money got donated to charity without pissing off everyone in the company.
I have a question, Lissa. From what I’ve gathered from your posts, your husband works at some government agency.
The employees are paid through taxes.
If your husband’s job is to get his employees to donate to charities through their paychecks, doesn’t this mean that taxpayer dollars are being used to fund charities?
I don’t pay taxes to fund charities. I pay taxes to make sure I can get my driver’s license renewed, and to make sure that I have a speedy response when I call 911.
I’m sure your husband is a wonderful person, but I’ll bet if you took an anonymous poll you would find, among the rank-and-file employees, he is not one of the more popular bosses.
In a round-about way, yes, but it’s part of the stated goals of this institution to support community groups. They use a lot of community resources, so it’s the instiutions way of “paying back” what they use. It’s reciprocation.
Most charites are funded, at least in part, by some tax dollars. Many couldn’t survive without the money they get from the government.
You’re absolutely right. The most popular bosses at his workplace are those which sit around and shoot the shit with the employees and never ask them to get any work done.
But he’s not there to be popular. He’s there to do his job, and to do it to the best of his ability.
If the worst thing that you boss ever does to you is ask that you evaluate your life in comparison to those in need, you’re damned lucky. If that’s enough to make you quit your job, you’re going to have a lot of problems.
This “captive audience” has more power than you think. Public perception is key, because when time rolls around for cuts in the budget, my husband’s workplace may be one of those which the public thinks needs less money. Considering the public’s safety is the primary goal of this institution, cuts are dangerous, but the public doesn’t realize that. However, if the institution has more of a positive image as one of those places which help support the community, cuts are less likely. It’s proven to be effective in the past, or else they wouldn’t do it.
Job security. Reciprocation for unsing community resources. Being a nice person.
His position is what is charmingly termed “essential”. Get rid of him, and the system (at least in that institution) grinds to a halt.
I may be misunderstanding you. Are you saying that employees must donate to their employer’s charity to keep their jobs?
Sorry, Lissa, but I simply don’t agree with you. You seem to be a very nice person who believes in giving back to the “less fortunate,” but being browbeat at work to donate my money to the charities they deem worthy is not in my job description.
I, quite frankly, couldn’t care less if the sheriff’s department donated $100,000 to the ASPCA. I do, however, care that the squad cars are in good working order and can respond quickly to emergencies. And I don’t want some sheriff’s deputy, who was guilted into donating to some cause by his boss, in a bad mood when he goes tearing down the highway with his sirens on.
My husband just read this thread and he wanted me to add a few things, some of which I did not know:
The records of individual employee donations were unknown to him during the drive and he did not try to find out about them later. There is a published list of names of who gives over certain levels (if they choose- and it is only put out after the drive is over), but it was his policy to never, ever, single individuals out in a sort of, “hey you did not give yet” manner.
Yes, he makes speeches and slide shows to show others how they stand compared to someone else. He always expressed the frustration about how some employees could derisively laugh at the misery of others or not understand how lucky they are. He was willing to still try to show them because, unlike most of the dopers here, there are many unenlightened people in this world. There are many employees who, until my husband arranged for a guest speaker, or put a slide show together, did not realize how an issue impacted their community, country or the world. In many of his presentations he would typically state, “I know many of you already give so much to the community…” This is because he used to be one of the people that would not give to the drive because he thought he did enough. Apparently, one of his peers one day pointed some things out to him and that changed his mind. One of those points was that he worked in the public sector and had a primary duty to lead by example. He agreed, some of you may not.
Yes, there are administrative costs, they are listed with each organization in the big charity book. He personally did not care for United Way’s administrative costs and tactics many times. He focused on general charitable giving which included the UW organizations and an even greater number of independents. He tried not to make any one charity more advertised than another, but he was always pointing out administrative costs when individuals had questions.
If someone told him that they gave elsewhere, he would not push them harder, because, as I said, he did not like to single people out. He was the administrator, so he strictly forbade direct, one on one solicitation for donations by management personnel towards subordinates. I did not know this, but what he did was recruit line staff volunteers to go around and give the cards to each employee and answer questions. Yes, he made the speeches and slide shows, but it was always to large groups. He told all of his managers/volunteers that deriding staff, singling them out or constantly harassing them individually was not allowed. He was a big believer in using education to motivate interest. Just give people the right information and the opportunity to help and they would do the right thing either at work, or at home. However, the donation cards were given out once, and only once, and then individual solicitations for donations ended (although at any time during the drive someone could get another card). The rest was large group presentations, emails, signs or events.
He is somewhat bitter and angry because one cannot imagine some of the utter hatred some people demonstrated. For example, he told me a story of a hot dog sale once, where they proceeds were going to the Local Domestic Violence Shelter. As I said, he would usually work on the line and thank people for their donation. One person, after he thanked them for the donation, demanded their money back for the hot dog. Using curse words and making a scene, the individual stated he doesn’t want one cent of his money going to any charity. My husband, of course, allowed the money to be given back in exchange for the hot dog, but it was just one example of the immense hatred espoused.
He does believe that, as a public servant, he has a duty to give back to the community, more than his work. Some of you disagree with this philosophically, so I guess we will have to agree to disagree. He recognizes that people are asked for money in so many different ways, but he still thought that he should try to motivate interest. He was good at it, and as I said, raised more money than anyone else before him.
He makes up the donations because he does get overall numbers and projections, but he does not know who gave what. He does this to lead by example amongst his other managers NOT the individual employees. In other words, although they do not know he makes up the difference, his department always hits the goal (or exceeds it).
He does not believe that the use of administrative leave to go speak to local schools, read to children or do other charity works is wrong. But, he realizes that their primary task is to do their jobs. Thus, he limits this as much as possible. However, most of the volunteered time was in the workplace itself, setting up hot dog sales etc… Yes, there is work to be done, but the volunteers just typically worked a little harder to catch up and make up for the lost time, or they would do it on their own time. This is admirable on their part and he always respected that greatly, but he never required it. The person had to be volunteer and they had to know that this was not required.
My overall point was that this thread started with hostility towards the managers who try to endorse charitable giving, specifically United Way. I wanted to defend some of those people, because I think many of them are like my husband who do it for good reasons. He never wanted to run the campaign, he was assigned. He received no special recognition for doing his job, in fact, he many times had to face all the negativity.
I think it is very sad when we cannot talk about giving to charity in a workplace, or challenge people to do more for each other. I think it has to do with community, something that is slowly dying in a modern America as individualism is becoming a more and more powerful social force.
He and I both do not think that someone’s job should be threatened, that they should be harassed or singled out for not giving to charity at the workplace or anywhere else.
Anyways, I think that about sums it up. I am sorry some of you do not agree and actually do not like people like my husband for doing what he was ordered, and what he thought was right. As for the allegations of snobbery, I guess I am just very proud of him because I do think he is a better person than most others in this world. This is not because he gives more money or time, but because he cares very deeply for others, tries to bring out the best in himself and leads by example.
Lissa, I’ve been in this thread early on, but so far I have refrained from commenting on “Lissa vs. the rest of the posters.”
My advice? Give it up. You’re defending someone you care about, and that’s admirable. But that person, your husband, was doing something most of the rest of us just can’t stand. Your utter inability to think, in the face of massive opposition, that it might be he or youwho are in the wrong, is foolish.
His motives, even based on your own words, do not seem to be charitably inclined, but more about making a good impression for the company. As I did say earlier in this thread, that’s not charity, that’s the purchasing of a commodity. Giving in order to GET has no blessing.
And as for his supposedly reading this thread and commenting through you, well, why is he hiding behind wifey? Why not register as a guest and do it himself?
We have a United Way drive at work, and the woman who runs it is laid back about it. No lectures about my nice cushy (heh) life versus that of others, no hardcore pressure. She does want us to have “100% participation” because frankly, she’s under a ton of pressure from higher up. So she says she’ll just staple a one-time donation of a dollar to someone’s slip if they don’t want to give money. We get a chance at drawings for nice stuff like pizza, gift certificates, and an extra day off of work, the United Way gets a buck from me, and I don’t have to deal with guilt trips and fears about being labeled “not a team player.” It’s not ideal (ideally “100% participation” wouldn’t be considered a reasonable goal), but it’s non-stressful.
And it’s none of anyone’s business at work who I donate to or how much I donate. My private life and beliefs are just that, private.
…of course, those slips have (or used to have) contact info like: Name, address, phone number, etc.
And the $1.00 establishes a “prior business relationship” so they can get around all the “no call list” laws (I’m not positive that United Way is covered under the charities exemption…I thought I’d read somewhere that they didn’t count as a charity by the law’s definition, somehow), and they can also share all your personal info with all their umbrella organizations.
Even if I was offered to have someone pay it for me, without knowing their privacy policy and their phone-solicitation policy, I still wouldn’t do it.
So let’s say I work for your husband. He tells me about the United Way drive, and the importance of meeting goals. I politely tell him, “I despise the United Way. I will never give them a dime.”
What will he likely say to me? Will my attitude toward the United Way reflect on my performance review? Will it be a factor in determining my raise or advancement of position? Will there be repercussions in any way?
Fenris, like I said in post #17, they did that to me, in order to have their precious 100% participation. And they did it without my consent. If you ever DO have someone make the offer, check up to be sure they don’t do to you what they did to me.
They tried to do that to me in my last job. I skipped the meeting where the UW guys spoke so they put the blue card in my in box with a bunch of other info. When I saw it, I threw it in the garbage with hardly a glance. Even if you don’t donate, they use the card for a drawing but I honestly don’t think it was right to enter the drawing if you don’t donate.
I spent the next week ignoring the emails and voice mails from the UW dweebs. They even called the people in the cubes next to mine to have them bug me. Eventually the head UW asshole came to my cube with a blue card in hand and demanded that I fill it out then and there. I declined. She then said that she would fill it out for me. I told her not to do that and that we could walk up the the head of HR and discuss it with her if she was so inclined. She backed down and finally left me the fuck alone. So sorry, you fucking tool, no 100% for you.
And I’m sure you’ve never had an instance where you disagreed with people on this board.
I’m sure the people who are on the recieving end really don’t give a damn why the money was collected-- all they care about is that they’ve been helped. Knowing that there’s someone out there who benefitted from all of this is “blessing” enough for me.
“Supposedly?” What’s this supposed to mean, anyway?
“Hiding behind wifey?” Perhaps I don’t spend enough time in the pit, but I don’t see a reason for becoming nasty about it.
He doesn’t want to register as a member. Simple as that.
