What would you do? 5

[Pressed]

This question for me is years over but I thought about it the other day and I would like to hear what others would have done given the situation.

On a normal day working in your office and told to come to a mandatory meeting about the United Way (large US charity). At the meeting there you see the entire office staff. They give you a pamplet and donation form with your name and address printed on it.

The city or county United Way rep gives a speech about who they are and thier services to the community. The services are many but most of which I haven't heard of before. Shows a 25 minute film going into detail about thier services. Then another speech about need, donations and a justification about giving money followed by the amount that is normal for the employees in the room to give; 10% of the annual salary. Finally asking you to have a nice day and please fill out the form and hand it to the rep as you exit. What would you do???

The form has a big check box for 10% of salary followed by a smaller section for a cash donation.

Other than the outcome, which I will tell amongst the anticipated replies, that is all the information I knew up to the moment I made a decision on what to do.


_______________________________________
Feeling frisky.........

http://www.tailofthedragon.com

 

[ajack1]

Firstly I am surprised that any company would make all of the staff turn up for a “meeting” like this, I would be very wary in fact I am sure it would be illegal in England.

As with any charity I would give an amount if I felt it did work that I felt was worthy, in all truth many do but you have to be selective.

Would I sign over 10% of my salary, absolutely no way.

 

[kchayfie]

I've started making donations directly to the charities I want to support so that I don't feel guilty about ignoring the endless requests for cash that come in many forms. Its mostly worked - apart from the people that ask me directly to sponsor them to do xxxx - I still feel too guilty to turn them down.

I don't think I'd have a problem handing back the blank form in this situation, although I'd probably make some comment about keeping my wages and my charitable donations separate and not involving the company I work for. Unless the employer plans on matching employees donations, the charity doesn't benefit by the donation coming from my wages and they can't prove I'm not donating in some other way.

 

[livingston]

I have been called into these 'meetings' as well. I tend to just donate $10 and let it go at that. It's a good way to donate money but the way they do it feels a lot like coercion.

 

[TheTick]

I dislike the United Way's strongarm tactics. I made it plain to the HR director at my last job that I do not give to the United Way anymore.

One thing I like to do durng the presentations is ask qustions like "How much does the president of the United Way make?" and "What fraction of each dollar actuallly makes it to charities?". The United Way is horribly inefficient in getting donated dollars to the organiations it supports. They just plain waste too much. I prefer to give my money directly to specific organizations.

I belong to a civic organization that has its own charities. I give to those, because I can see where the money goes.

 

[PSE]

Where I first worked we had similar meetings and I routinely participated. At one time I was asked to be the department representative on the United Way committee (declined). There was a lot of impetus to participate as the forms had to be signed and turned in regardless of whether or not you were going to donate. I had determined by that time that the United Way did not actually do anything directly but instead distributed funds amongst already established charitable organizations. It did provide a convienient way of contributing to charities. I chose to cut out the "middle man" and contribute directly to those organizations of choice. While this was something I could do as well through the UW, it would have been less effective because of their overhead.

Participating in benevolence is a matter of choice and you should do what you feel comfortable with. While money is most often the request, other organizations are thrilled to receive material donations as well as volunteer time.

Regards,

 

[Jabberwocky]

That sounds illegal in the US also. High-pressure sales tactics during mandatory company meetings...I'd be wary about the corporate culture as whole.

That being said, it doesn't actually hurt you to waste your time in such a meeting, as it sounds you were still thinking clearly enough to ask the important questions.

 

[kchayfie]

So Pressed, what did you do? And what's the catch that you've hinted at?

 

[bioengr82]

We have one of these meetings every year. And every year I wonder why wouldn't you just give your money directly to the orgnization and save the 10% overhead UW has.

I guess my point is that I wad up the form and throw it away on my way out of the meeting.

 

[RDK]

Around here the United Way gets its overhead directly funded by government (lottery) money.

My gripe with the United Way is that they include a lot of charities and you may not want to give to ALL of them. Lets face it no one wants to give money to BOTH sides of the abortion issue.

They claim that you can earmark your contribution to include or exclude specific charities but that is not the case. Let’s say that “My Favorite Charity” is to receive say 100,000 from the campaign. If I give them $100 directly then they will end up with $100,100 in total. If I give through the United Way and earmark them for $100 then they will get my $100 plus only 99,900 from the common united way pool.

Only of the total given directly to “My Favorite Charity” is in excess of the $100,000 will they get any more money.

The same happens in reverse if you do not want any money to go to “Not My Favorite Charity”

If the United Way meets its funding goals the end result of all the allocations will be that everyone gets what they would have had no one made any specific contributions, unless there was a huge imbalance in the assignments of those giving.

For the last several years I have been looking for ways to simply cut out the middlemen and all the overhead and give my charity donations in as a direct a manner as possible. For example my sister is a teacher for a disadvantaged school. I simply send her with my bank card to the office supply store at the back to school specials and let her buy what she needs and will use in the classroom. No middle men, no overhead, all my money is spent wisely on the needs of the kids at risk.


Rick Kitson MBA P.Eng

Construction Project Management
From conception to completion

http://www.kitsonengineering.com

 

[BJC]

Your boss's boss and his boss get big brownie points by having the company reach the required quota. They get to go to banquets and golf tournaments with other "local business and civic leaders". They want you to give so they can kiss up.
When they send you the email reminding you to complete your form send them the link to one of the sites like Charity Watch. It will tell you the guy who runs the Salvation Army gets less than 10 grand a year, the one who runs UW gets more that you and five of your friends.
Tell your boss your sorry his esteem among his fellow executives has to suffer but you figured the needs of the bum sleeping in the doorway are greated than his needs to smooze.

 

[Beggar]

When I was straight out of college, our company had a UW campaign. Each senior manager/director type had a "team" that competed with the others to see who could raise the most money. Each employee was assigned to a team.

I was taken to "team" meeting, given the pitch and then handed the election form and told that I must indicate my election, even if none. At $14.70 per hour I didn't have much to spare after my SoCal rent and buying the required outfits of silk ties, wool slacks, etc. So, I discretely folded up my form and walked out. I was called into the Director's office the next day and told that my form was missing and that I had to fill it out in front of her.

During the third year, I began to complain about the strong-arm tactics. As punishment, I was put on the UW committee the following year. Shortly after that, I was laid off.

I've held UW in complete contempt since then.

What would I do now? Refuse to sign the form. What did I do then? Capitulate.

Some of the senior guys would sign up for $0.03 per paycheck. Another guy handed them a $2 bill and called it good.

Even aside from the valid arguments of executive pay (and remember the NY penthouse/pvt jet scandal 10 years back?) and middle-man cut, their style is so odious to me that I'd never have anything to do with them now.

What should you do? It just depends on where you are in the pecking order and how confident you are in ruffling feathers.

--------------------
Bring back the HP-15

http://www.hp15c.org

--------------------

 

[HgTX]

10% of salary sounds ridiculously high regardless of strongarm tactics.

I don't give to United Way. I give to others. They don't get 10% of my salary.

Hg

Eng-Tips policies: faq731-376

 

[CarolinaPE]

Whatever you do be cheerful in giving. Give what you can even if it is not to UW.

 

[epoisses]

It's a bit strange for Europeans to read how closely work and charity are connected in the US. Imagining myself in this scenario, I would probably have protested against going to such a meeting in the first place, and would certainly not have given a single centime even simply because I hate this kind of ambush. There are so many organisations to donate to, and so many of them are inefficient or downright fraudulous, so if UW is like this, they can forget me forever.

 

[bigTomHanks]

Blindly throwing money at any organization seems useless to me. I like RDK's approach. There are plenty of local churches/schools that you can give the money to that will use it for genuine good.

 

[RDK]

Of course for major disaster relief like the Tsunami, Katrina and the Pakistani earthquake that approach does not work.

I do also give to the major established charities for this sort of thing but tend to do the bulk of my giving closer to home. It is quite satisfying to know that your money went to give some child their first book and not to support some executive lifestyle of people managing the charity.





Rick Kitson MBA P.Eng

Construction Project Management
From conception to completion

http://www.kitsonengineering.com

 

[JAE]

While most of the posts here are pretty negative against UW giving, I'd like to point out just a few counter points

(keeping in mind that I also get these cards every year, write in $0, return them, and then donate to my own charities directly)...

1. The whole concept of UW is that it allows lots of charities to solicit donations under one roof, thereby minimizing a million different individual solicitation managers and departments. This is a good thing and reduces the "middle man" costs immensely.

2. The coziness betweeen UW and corporations who call "mandatory" meetings is not illegal at all. A private business can call any meeting it wants and ask its employees to listen. The employee still can say $0 and/or still can leave the company freely if they want. What the corp. cannot do is apply pressure to donate (i.e. your job or future promotions are contingnent upon you donating). That can be fine line or can be difficult to prove, but it is true never the less. The donations should be such that only a few non-upper-management individuals deal with the individual card donation amounts and thus the supervisors should never know who gives how much.

3. Here is a link to UW's evaluation report from the Better Business Bureau. Fund raising expenses were < 1% of the funds received... I don't know how their non-fund raising expenses panned out, though. [green]United Way BBB Report[/green]. They do get a great deal of efficiency out of asking for volunteers to serve during the annual fund raising events. This drives down the costs tremendously.

4. To simply point to a few executives that get paid a lot to manage the UW is like pointing out the small scratch on an otherwise beautiful classic automobile....

5. One last point: by combining all these charities under one roof and using a large-scale fund raising event each year, I would think that this increases the visibility of the whole idea of giving to charity that a lot of people wouldn't have under other circumstances. So for all of us who give to individual charities, great - wonderful thing to do. For a lot of other people who don't have charities on their radar, the UW would seem to be a way to allow the "community" of our country to stimulate giving.

Again - I don't give to this group for my own reasons, but there is some validity in what they do and who they are.

 

[HgTX]

My employer has a different umbrella campaign that includes many charities of which UW is just one. Much better way to go since many people have their own reasons for not supporting the UW but might otherwise find it convenient to donate to charity through payroll deduction.

Hg

Eng-Tips policies: faq731-376

 

[Pressed]

Thank you for the considerate replies. For those who questioned: United Way is a legitimate US national charity. Weary replies stem from all the scandals in the past with distribution amounts and high salaries amongst numerous charities. Mandatory charity meetings at work are not the norm in the US and I've not heard of anybody else being asked the same till this thread. I wasn't aware UW had a collection system that worked in this way. To be pulled away from working and asked for 10% of salary was quite a shock. I can't believe that works year after year.

There isn't any way I could have described how much they were working for the money. They didn't have a written mandatory policy for the 10% but they sure made it clear that is what they wanted. My observation was that employees felt pressed, most seemed agitated. HR was collecting the cards which means they would be reviewing them. This was a poor area and even though we were a major company, many employees were not making much money.

Corporate culture: It was a small community so I think the brownie points were for the off-site corporate office. This company also had people signed up, mandatory, for the blood drive. All fodder for the company newsletter/boardroom.

"Some of the senior guys would sign up for $0.03 per paycheck. Another guy handed them a $2 bill and called it good."

Yeah, a co-worker came up with something similar to this and I thought it kinda cruel; they have to pay money to transfer three cents!!???

What did I do? Handed the director of HR a blank form and a twenty dollar bill on top. Saw her dissapointment and she handed it back to me saying I didn't fill out the form. I laid them on the table, asked if she wanted a donation and exited back to work.

Oh, "chaf" there is no catch. I kept the story open as much as I could. No pressure from me!

_______________________________________
Feeling frisky.........

http://www.tailofthedragon.com