New Kid In Town

FES - Federal Employee Support For CFC Charitable Giving Incorporated - is a nonprofit organization formed specifically to administer local Combined Federal Campaigns (CFC).  That's a contract job often taken by the local United Way.  In fact, until recently these CFC management contracts were a United Way sinecure.  Not any more.  Other CFC federations now manage CFCs in major cities across the country.

But FES is different.  It's not a CFC federation.  It's not listed in the CFC brochure, and it doesn't solicit gifts for itself from CFC donors.  In other words, FES is not a beneficiary of CFC gifts.  It is truly an independent, disinterested third-party administrator - a status that makes it inherently superior to United Way or another federation that has a stake in the campaign it is managing and thus has an inherent  conflict-of-interest.   

That conflict of interest is not just in theory.  I give most campaign managers credit for resisting temptation to use their power to favor their employer federation at the expense of the other charities.  But in real world CFC campaign situations advantage is sometimes taken; often it's taken without deliberation, but taken nevertheless.

FES started with administering the Pike's Peak CFC.  Then it added Pittsburgh's Three Rivers CFC to its list.  And for 2007 it has added San Francisco Bay Area.  FES is governed by (mostly) retired federal employees themselves, people who have had significant experience with the CFC.  They know what they're doing.  FES gets rave reviews for its service.   You can  bet that  campaigns will sign up as fast as FES can scale up.

When the US Office of Personnel Management (OPM) circulated drafts of the new CFC regulations for comment last year, I suggested they open up the management contracts to the private sector so there would be more competitive bids.  Right now only nonprofits are permitted to bid.  OPM did include that idea in its potential change list at one point, but the howl of opposition from United Way and other federations, fearful of losing their lucrative contracts, caused OPM to withdraw the idea in the final draft of the regulations.   How ironic that a nonprofit corporation organized by federal employees themselves is accomplishing the same thing.