The Lightning Rod M/M Blog

Workplace Campaigns and the Internet

This is a screen shot of the "front page" of the Union Bank of California's intranet home of its annual employee charitable fund drive (P.A.L.S.). This is an all-electronic campaign; there is no paper brochure, and all pledges are made online. The bank manages the campaign itself and honors (and matches) employee gifts to any charity, church, or school.

Note that the web site has links to the IRS, Guidestar, United Way of America, and Independent Charities of America/Local Independent Charities of America. When a prospective donor "discovers" you via the Independent Charities web site, are you gonna like the way you look? Do you have a "web ad" with a graphic posted on the Independent Charities site? Do you have a human interest story? And when donors click through to your own site, will it be evident to them that your organization welcomes and appreciates employee workplace campaign gifts? And that you also welcome online credit card gifts and vehicle donations as well?

We expect to see more and more campaigns like Union Bank's. In fact, that is exactly how the San Francisco Bay Area United Way campaign (where ICA and LICA are "partners") is being conducted this fall. The partners' member charities are not listed on the United Way web site, just links to the partners' web sites.

Thus, I encourage everyone to take a fresh look at their presentation at www.independentcharities.org and to make sure your own web site is workplace campaign friendly.

CFC Code Numbering Proposals

Q: Dear Patrick,

EarthShare and some other CFC federations are expressing concerns about OPM's proposed "universal, unique & permanent" code number system. These federations want to somehow keep or incorporate their members' "old" 4-digit code numbers to reflect their members' relationship with their federations. Do you share their concerns?

A. Absolutely not. The premise of their concern is that there is some "equity" in the present CFC code numbers. That is not the case and never has been. Even if there were such equity, having a unique, permanent identifier number assigned to your organization is much more valuable.

Any attempt to tie a code number to charity's CFC "relationship" history (local campaign area, certifying federation, national vs. local list, etc.) will only complicate matters. Any system except random number generation will be obsolete the moment it is implemented. Local CFC campaigns will merge, charities will change federations, local charities will go to national status, national charities will go international and vice versa, new federations will be admitted, former federations will be disbanded, etc. Once any of those events happens the code number's former relationship value becomes extinct and a new number must be assigned. That defeats the whole purpose of having a permanent number.

There is nothing in our experience or research to suggest that a change in code numbers, especially a one-time change, will "confuse" CFC contributors. Despite the large number of our clients' member charities that have had code number changes over the years (as they have changed federations or been reassigned numbers by OPM), we have never had a contributor express any confusion. As a matter of fact, as a Sports Charities USA board member, a retired Marine Corp colonel, told a group of CFC charities meeting recently, in her 20+ years experience with the CFC she found that the great majority of contributors couldn't even remember which charities they gave to in the previous campaign, much less the code numbers.

Hey, Better Business Bureau -- Curb Your (watch)Dog

Dear Patrick:

I've received a letter from the Better Business Bureau Wise Giving Alliance asking us to submit to their evaluation. Gathering this information will take quite a lot of time, and I'm not sure we'll be in compliance with their standards in any case. I'm concerned that an unfavorable review will hurt us. What is your advice?

Dear David:

I have no problem with self-appointed watchdogs who publish the charities that meet their standards. It's a free country. I do have a problem with watchdogs like BBB who publish the names of charities that do not meet their standards or that prefer not to invest the time and money to undergo the evaluation.

I also have a problem with watchdogs who contact you because they are supposedly receiving inquiries or complaints "from the public." Of course, you're not allowed to know who is complaining, or how many complaints there have been, or what is the nature of the complaints. Sound familiar?

If you do not respond, or if you decline to provide the information, BBB will nevertheless publish a report on your organization. It will state: "Despite written BBB Wise Giving Alliance requests in the past year, this organization either has not responded to Alliance requests for information or has declined to be evaluated in relation to the Alliance’s Standards for Charity Accountability. While participation in the Alliance’s charity review efforts is voluntary, the Alliance believes that this lack of cooperation may demonstrate a lack of commitment to transparency and accountability."

"...May demonstrate a lack of commitment to transparency and acountability"?????? Give me a break! You didn't cooperate with me, so I'm going to infer you're a crook?

My advice is to have your counsel respond to the letter declining to participate and noting that your organization is already reviewed by Independent Charities of America and has been awarded ICA's Seal of Excellence. The ICA standards are arguably more rigorous than BBB's. Your counsel should demand that if BBB issues a "declined to be evaluated" report it must include this specific language regarding your review and approval by ICA. BBB probably won't do so, but at least you'll be on record.

Maybe if all the other charities that have declined to be evaluated BBB got together and took action jointly they could get the BBB to stop this practice. Certainly BBB's "sacred cow" status has got to go. Their standards are by no means universally accepted as appropriate. There are numerous other watchdogs, all with different standards. And BBB makes money selling licenses to use their seal, which is a conflict of interest in my view.

Is United Way Donor Option Disappearing? Part II

So United Way wants to be more like a big grants-making foundation and less like "a mere pass-through organization." Too bad. They are pretty good at being a pass-though organization, and common sense tells you that the giving public as a group is in a better position to determine what giving priorities should be than the charity bureaucrats at United Way.

Nevertheless, if that's their agenda, that's their business. But when they want to advance their agenda by dis-empowering YOUR donor, that's your business. So what do you do when your donor calls and says "United Way won't let me give to you."

1. Get it in writing, either from the donor or the United Way.

2. Ask the donor to file a complaint with the company's human resources office. Charitable giving through payroll deduction is an employee benefit, and if the employee is not able to exercise that benefit because the United Way has decided to pre-empt the employee's choice of recipients, that's discrimination. Not legally, perhaps, but in reality. My buddy who wants to give to the United Way can use the payroll deduction benefit. But if I want to give someplace else I can't use the benefit.

3. Accept that the employee wants to vent his anger and frustration but in the end, most of the time, will do nothing. Fear of consequences for rocking the boat will usually trump standing up.

4. Give the employee an alternative way to give to you in bite-sized chunks using a method other than payroll deduction. Send him to your web site to make a recurring credit card gift. That's as economical and convenient for the giver as payroll deduction, and it's even better for you because you get the money without United Way's service fee taken out.

5. Write the company's chairman of the board or CEO and express your dismay with United Way policy. Don't use the complaining employee's name without his express permission, of course, but do express your own displeasure, politely but forcefully. The United Way is the company's agent if it's running the company's employee fund drive, so if the United Way is discriminating against you then the company is discriminating against you.

Write to share your own ideas for "best practices" in handling this situation.

Tracking $$$ From Corporate Campaigns

For the past several years we have made a sustained effort to make ICA member charity data available to independent corporate campaigns, uploading it either directly to the companies themselves or through 3rd party providers of campaign services for corporate accounts – such as Create Hope in Bethesda, MD, and the JK Group in Princeton, NJ.

We have also encouraged ICA members to remind their giver constituencies who have access to United Way “donor choice” or “write-in” programs that the charities welcome these contributions.

Unlike the CFC, state, and municipal campaigns, however, the gifts that come from these independent corporate campaigns and United Way donor choice programs are transmitted directly to you. So if you want to really understand how well you are doing in the private sector workplace campaign world you need to be tracking these gifts in addition to reports you receive from ICA or LICA via your online portfolio.

These gifts arrive in one of three ways:

1. United Way Donor Choice (“write–in”) gifts. These are gifts from campaigns "owned and operated" by United Way. They are transmitted via United Way check, or sometimes by EFT.

2. Checks forwarded by 3rd party administrators. These are gifts from companies that have their own stand-alone campaigns outside of the United Way, though they may contract with United Way for 3rd party administrative support services like forwarding the gifts. Though the check will be drawn on a United Way bank account, there is usually an accompanying letter explaining the proceeds are gifts from a particular company campaign. If the letter identifies the gift as “from the United Way campaign” or similar generic language, the proceeds can be presumed to be “write-in” gifts. The principal other 3rd party administrators are: Create Hope/World Reach, Kintera, JK Group, Global Impact, Community Health Charities, AmeriGives, America’s Charities, and of course, ICA and LICA.

3. Checks directly from corporations for remittances from their employee fund drives (including matching gifts).

I recommend your accounting office keep track of corporate campaign remittances by these three categories. The data can tell you a lot. For example, if you are a national charity with a national marketing program and you see that United Way donor choice gifts are significantly less than the gifts from the other two categories, that can suggest your message is working "top of mind" for corporate workplace givers. That's because Donor Choice represents a far, far bigger pool of potential givers than the other types. There is a higher likelihood that checks from 3rd party administrators or directly from companies represent proceeds from campaigns where you "listed" in some manner, thus "reminding" prospective givers of the option to chose you.

I've attached an Excel spreadsheet to help you show accounting what you're looking for. If they already have the data for past years, I'd be happy to help you analyze it.
Download GivingSurvey.xls

Is United Way Donor Option Disappearing? Part I

We push and push and push our member charities to communicate to their constituents that they can support the charities though company at-work fund drives, including United Way "donor choice" (or "write-in gifts") programs. Makes sense because many of these constituents are going to contribute through these fund drives anyway, and they'd just as soon give it to a charity they already support. And individual workplace gifts are generally larger than gifts through other venues because of payroll deduction. Charities that heed our advice find gifts from United Way donor option programs are an increasing source of unrestricted income over time.

But sometimes a donor will call the charity and say "Hey, United Way says I can't give to you."

What's going on with that? Two things:

First, there is a concerted effort within the United Way system to roll back donors' rights to contribute to the charities of their choice outside of United Way's approved list. It's sometimes referred to as the "take back the United Way" movement. The thinking is that United Ways are in a better position to "community problem solve" than individual donors are (sic), so letting donors decide for themselves where to send their money diminishes the capacity of the United Way to accomplish its (self-appointed) mission. Every donor-directed dollar is one less dollar for United Way to control.

Second, there is a parallel movement within the United Way to dispense with the operating model of "member charities" to which United Way will make "allocations" from its community fund, which the member charities then decide how to spend. Instead, the new model is for United Way to make grants to fund specific services in furtherance of United Way-identified strategic goals. Goals like "Children ages 0-5 are ready for school" or "People at risk are successfully coping and living independently." (I am not making this up.) Again, allowing donors to send their money to specific charities of their own choice would be counter-productive to this model.

Result: More and more local United Ways are diluting their donor choice programs or trying to make donor choice less palatable to donors by limiting the choices to only United Way "approved" charities, or by requiring substantial-size minimum gifts to qualify for donor option, or by assessing expensive extra service charges to process donor choice gifts, or a combination of all the foregoing. A darker and not uncommon practice is to remand a donor option gift to the United Way general fund if for any reason the gift doesn't qualify under United Way's rules and the donor can't be contacted.

United Way spokespeople say that donors are responding positively to these new policies, but you wouldn't get that impression from the phone calls we get here. We have never had more donor complaints about United Way than we have had this year. It turns out many givers prefer donor democracy to United Way autocracy. They are not buying this new "we know what's best for the community" approach. In company campaigns where the United Way is the only option, United Way's get tough on donor choice policies are seen by many as arrogant and bullying. (Yes, United Ways are against "coercion," but the truth is it's still harder to say no when your boss sits on the United Way board.)

I have never talked to angrier donors than I have this year. And not just worker bees in the trenches, but senior executives that have the ability to eliminate United Way in their companies and will do so. For example, one company that is a large regional employer in the southeast US appointed one of its most senior execs as the United Way campaign coordinator for the company. He asked the United Way if the company's employees would be able to give to the charities of their choice as they had in the past. United Way said yes. But when the United Way pledge cards arrived the executive found there was no space on them to make gifts to any but a short list of United Way approved charities printed on the back of the cards. When he confronted the United Way he was told that of course his employees could still chose -- they could chose from among any of the charities United Way had pre-selected for them.

Thank goodness for independent corporate campaigns that set their own freedom-of-choice policies, and for the many United Ways that still honor donor-directed gifts and respect the intelligence of the givers who make them, even if those United Ways would prefer the donors defer the decision-making to them.

But as for the others, I fear in the long term they are poisoning the workplace giving well from which we all drink. Turned off and made distrustful by these tactics, many employees may decide not to give at work, period.

Please write to tell me what YOUR donors' experiences have been with the "new" United Way.

Matching Gifts and Corporate Workplace Gifts

Question:

When you do a workplace giving presentation to companies, do you mention anything about setting up matching gift programs with companies/corporations or mention anything at all regarding matching gifts during your presentation? Do you have any information on setting up matching gift programs?

Answer:

Yes, we do mention matching gifts. And you'll recall that in the ICA member training we stress the importance of members mentioning matching gifts in their communications with constituents.

We have found that companies either already have a matching gift program or keep their matching gift program separate from their employee workplace fund drive. Some companies only match gifts to certain charities or types of institutions. "Write-in" gifts made through United Way drives generally don't qualify for matches, and matching gifts in independent corporate campaigns where ICA members participate are sent directly to the charities, not through the federations. Thus, our experience with matching gifts is limited.

Were we to be approached about establishing a stand-alone matching gift program we would as a professional courtesy refer the company to the JK Group of Princeton NJ. They are a leading third party administrator of such programs. I have copied Paul Kalomeris of JK here. Perhaps he can offer additional information that would be helpful. Thanks in advance, Paul.

Patrick

CFC Kick Off Events: Why Are They So Hard To Sign Up For??

Dear Charity Executive:

I'm writing in my capacity as business agent for Local Independent Charities (LICA), the federated group that certifies (Local Charity) for participation in various workplace fund drives in the greater National Capital area, including the CFC and the United Way of the National Capital Area. I gather (Local Charity) has some dissatisfaction with the number of CFC events to which it has been invited. If that is indeed the case, I can assure you that yours is not the only organization to be dissatisfied with how the events invitations are being accomplished this year. We are hearing complaints not only from our own member charities but from all the federated groups participating in the campaign.

Here is what is going on: The National Capital Area CFC is not publicizing as many events as in the past. There is a new procedure this year designed to allocate the scarce invitations evenly among the charities that have signed up for events, but we're not sure how well it is working. I am meeting directly with the CFC campaign manager next Tuesday to express that our concern and discuss how the procedure can be improved.

The reality, however, is this: The CFC is at the point where there are more charities that want to participate in events than there are event slots to accommodate them. Because of ongoing security concerns, federal offices are scheduling fewer events (a trend that has been going on for several years and is accelerating) and/or scheduling smaller events, with fewer charities invited. At the same time, many local campaign coordinators (the people who actually conduct the campaign in their respective federal agencies) are choosing to implement their events without going through the CFC campaign headquarters; that is, the coordinators themselves choose which charities to invite based on their previous experience or on what they think will be the most interesting to their colleagues and then invite those charities directly. Thus, they bypass the organized, official system. Another popular alternative is for coordinators to ask their colleagues at work if anyone who has a personal connection with a CFC charity would be willing to speak at the "kickoff." (One of the techniques we encourage LICA member charities to use is to write the CFC givers who have released their names and addresses and ask those givers to serve as "ambassadors" in the subsequent campaign. Many givers are pleased to do so.)

To its credit, the CFC has addressed this trend proactively. For example, the campaign publishes an insert in the Washington Post tabloid "Express" which contains the "get out the vote" type messages that CFC campaign speakers would normally deliver at live events. (An aside: Sometimes charities fail to realize that, from the campaign's point of view, charities are ancillaries to CFC events, not the main purpose for the events. The main purpose for the events is to generate employee enthusiasm for the campaign itself. The charities are invited, if at all, for "color"). The campaign also encourages greater use of the internet. All participating charities have their internet addresses prominently displayed in the campaign donors brochure listings. (BTW: I was happy to see that (Local Charity’s) web site has the CFC and UWNCA logos and code number on its front page; that's smart).

LICA also has programs to help prospective CFC givers discover LICA members online. Please visit www.bestcfc.org. to see what I mean. About 32,000 CFC givers will visit the site this year. That presents a far greater opportunity for contact than CFC events do.

I see, however, that ((Local Charity) is not taking full advantage of other LICA marketing services. I suggest you go to your LICA online portfolio (www.lic.org, password XXXXX) and do these three things:

1. Add keywords for the web search engines.

2. Add a "human interest" story that illustrates your work. When you do that the story automatically pops up with your listing on both the LIC web site and the bestcfc.org web site.

3. Download and execute the "Best In America" seal of excellence license and then post the seal on your web site next to the CFC and UW logos.

These services are designed to help you stand out from the competition, and they are free.

Right now the most effective thing you can do to encourage gifts to (Local Charity) in the present Fall 2006 campaign is to implement suggestions 1-2-3 above.

Regards,

Patrick Maguire