The Lightning Rod M/M Blog

Contest: Design The Logo For The Untied (Not A Typo) Way

Our newest pro bono client is an advocacy organization whose mission is to encourage and empower on-the-job givers to donate directly to the charities of their choice.  Hence  the name:  United Workers for the Untied Way (UWUW).  It was formed to counter the move now afoot within the United Way system to scale back or eliminate donor choice and return to the bad old days when a workplace gift went to United Way only -- no designating it to an individual charity, thank you very much.

UWUW needs a logo.  So I'm asking readers of this blog to submit suggestions.  The ideal logo would be suggestive of the United Way logo but revamping it to make a statement (and not infringe on United Way's copyright).  You recall the United Way logo -- an anorexic Pillsbury Dough Boy standing under a rainbow.  How can we twist that?  Have fun!      

Kaiser Permanente - Case In Point

If you follow this blog, or if you've attended the Independent Charities of America "Workplace 101" seminar, you know that more and more major companies are adopting the "non-federation/donor-choice/pay-direct/3rd party administrator" model for their employee workplace fund drives.  With this approach individual employees are empowered to select virtually any charity, church, or school to receive their payroll contributions.  Employee choice is not limited to the member charities of charitable federations (e.g. United Way or Independent Charities of America), and federations do not control access to the fund drive.  The "charities list," if there even is one, is generally a compilation of all the organizations employees have donated to in the past.  (Another method often used is to augment the employees' list with membership lists uploaded by federations.  For example, these lists are provided by Independent Charities of America and Local Independent Charities of America to Union Bank of California and other companies).  The employee gifts are sent directly to the designated organizations; that is, they are not distributed via the charitable federation the organization may belong to.   The company contracts with an independent 3rd party to confirm the recipient organizations' charitable status and to transmit the gift funds.

The Kaiser Permanente (Northern California) has used this model for two years now.   Yesterday Kaiser's campaign manager shared this bit of information with us:  Only eight days into this year's campaign and already 812 different nonprofit organizations have been selected by Kaiser employee-givers.  The majority of those are local schools and churches.  This selection spread is typical -- when you give employees freedom of choice in giving they will use it -- and it illustrates why it is so important for charities to remind their constituents and previous givers in the fall that the charities are available to receive gifts from employee at-work charitable fund drives.  Proactive PR is far more productive in raising money from this pool of funds than any other technique.  Letters, post cards, newsletters, etc. should include this message.

That proactive PR should also include asking contributors from all fund raising venues to reveal where they work and how to reach them by (personal) email.   Early contact to  achieve "top of mind" status is essential when employee givers have virtually unlimited choices.  It can also increase employer matching gifts.  Kaiser, for example, matches its employees' gifts up to $100 for the first 2,000 employee-givers.  Other companies, like Hewlitt-Packard, have similar policies. 

Is Harvard A Charity?

In yesterday's edition of the Los Angeles Times Robert Reich, who was Secretary of Labor under President Clinton, proposed the following:  If a charitable donation goes to an institution or agency set up to help the poor, the donor should get the full tax deduction.  If the donation goes to any other nonprofit, the donor would only get to deduct half the contribution.

The broader idea is that gifts to institutions that do not provide a "public benefit" or that cater to the wealthy elite  should not merit an underwriting from the  public at large in the form of foregone taxes on that money.  A gift to the Salvation Army deserves a deduction; a gift to Harvard does not.

I have great respect for Mr. Reich.  His recently published book, "Supercapitalism: The Transformation of Business, Democracy, and Everyday Life," is on my to-buy list today. 

But this idea that some charitable gifts are more "worthy" than others is a non-starter for anyone who cares about donor freedom of choice.  Unfortunately, it is being talked up by numerous social policy wonks around the country and even in Congress.   

The problem, of course, is who decides if a nonprofit is "meritorious" enough?  The IRS?  Congress?  Sure, most of us could argue that helping the poor, who need assistance, is more important than helping Harvard, with its $30 billion endowment.  But why is helping the poor more important than, say, rescuing stray animals?  Or funding medical research?   Or cleaning up a creek?

Even if we expend the idea of "public benefit" to include the above examples, what happens when the money goes to a "public benefit institution" but doesn't get spent on a public benefit.  My favorite example is money going to United Way which then spends it on public service announcements reminding us to talk to our children.  This is a "public benefit?"

Yes, it might be great if the wealthy were more generous to the poor and less generous to the arts, but I suspect meddling in the giver decision-making process would result in less money to both the poor and to the arts.  Like they say, the devil is in the details, and the path to hell is paved with good intentions.

The real question is whether, as a matter of public policy, gifts to nonprofits should be tax-deductible at all.  Who wants to tackle that one?