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.