The Lightning Rod M/M Blog

Another Day, Another United Way Cookie Jar

Earlier this week the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (www.ajc.com) reported that Mark O'Connell, the former CEO of United Way of Metropolitan Atlanta, received nearly $1.6 million in cash as a pension supplement.  There followed the usual and customary howls of outrage.

I say, give Mr. O'Connell a break.  If his corporate masters on the United Way board thought he was worth it, who are we to second-guess them?

Just one problem:  Nobody told the board.  They did not vote on this increase.  According to AJC's story, although leaders of the compensation committee claimed they informed the board, board members AJC contacted said they didn't know O'Connell was on track to receive this supplement.

Sound familiar?

I wonder how many other UW execs out there have similar retirement packages their boards don't know about.

Defenders of the payout said they did it so as to not lose a valuable chief executive.  Huh?  According to its most recently available IRS 990 return, for the year ending June 30, 2005, United Way of Metropolitan Atlanta operated at en effective overhead rate of 27.6 percent.  That is to say, they paid out to charities only 72.4 percent of what they took in.  That's poor management, even by United Way standards.

Another "Only Inside The Beltway" Idea

If you think "inside the beltway" mentality is confined to politicians and bureaucrats, consider this tale...

It happened like it always does. 

In the 1980s all the national CFC federations would get together in Washington once a quarter to meet informally with the CFC managers at the US Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to trade ideas, observations, and information.  It was a collegial group.

Then, in the 1990's one of the federation representatives to the group (one of my former clients, I'm embarrassed to say) sold his peers the bad idea of "visualizing our mission" and "securing the resources" to fund that vision.

All of which quickly led to:

*     Rules for "membership" in the "committee" (now grandly named the National Combined Federal Campaign Committee, although in fact it had and has no official CFC status)

*    Mission creep (in addition to meeting with OPM the members would conduct CFC "market research," publish a web site, and produce the annual CFC film, among other things)

*    Membership creep (the committee would be open to representatives outside of the national federations)

*    And, of course, a dues assessment system to fund all this important work. 

Within a year or two it became apparent that nobody on the committee knew a thing about market research, web sites, or making films.  In any case, these things were already being accomplished by OPM and CFCs in the field.  Not being able to justify the expense, federations began leaving the committee, and it dwindled in size to just a third of the national CFC federations.  Most of the federations remaining stopped sending their senior executives to the meetings, and OPM put less importance on working with the committee.

All of which, in a rational world, would have led to the committee's unmourned demise.  But wait.  Kalman Stein of EarthShare has proposed that the CFC levy a tax on contributions that would raise about $278,000 to fund the committee.  (The present committee budget is about $70,000). 

Let me get this straight, Kal.  You want the Federal Government to deduct fees from CFC contributions and send the money to a self-appointed, non-official group representing a tiny fraction of CFC participating charities so this group can continue to produce useless programs to justify its existence.  And you are serious about this.

Only inside the beltway.

 

Back In The Day: A Trend Wave

"Back in the day."  That phrase is popping up everywhere.  Especially in print and especially in first person writing like columns and blogs.  I've seen it in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the San Francisco Chronicle, and even in the sailing magazine Latitude 38.   I've been seeing it everywhere, and so have you.  But the interesting thing is this:  Six months ago this phrase was nowhere to be seen.

"Back in the day" is a perfect example of a trend wave.  Trend wave is a concept we teach in our Workplace Campaign 101 training.  A trend wave is not the same as a trend.  Trends are forseeable and their life cycles are predictable.  Trend waves are more analogous to rogue waves in the ocean.  They are unexpected and unpredictable.

Almost every year we experience a trend wave in the Combined Federal Campaign and other workplace charity drives that offer donor freedom of choice.  A significant number of contributors unexpectedly select a charity or a class of charities that you would not have expected them to select given previous years' results, and they do so for no obvious or discernible reason.  Usually within a campaign season or two that support diminishes or even evaporates altogether.

Trend waves are one reason why an individual charity's workplace campaign income can fluctuate wildly from year to year.  Just when it looked like smooth sailing, a trend wave comes along and capsizes your boat.  Or speeds you to safe harbor.  Luck of the draw.