Does your company make you try to donate to United Way?

[sze5003]

My company runs a 2-3 month campaign about donating to the united way. Doing some research at home I found out that the foundation's CEO makes about 271k a year not including benefits. So where does all the money go?

I prefer to donate my old clothes and other things to the salvation army. But it's like at work they try and push you to donate to united way by signing up through eft check deductions. I think they want around .5 to 1% of your salary.

Does anyone else have to do this ?

 

[surfsatwerk]

Yeah I totally blow them off, I throw the envelope straight in the recycle bin.

 

[Vdubchaos]

I remember back when I worked at Pratt and Whitney, they announced HUGE layoffs and the vary people they were laying off were called in to United Way donation meeting.....that was fuckin ridicules.

 

[PokerGuy]

Yep, we have the same drives here. I think the united way is a good cause, but I prefer to donate to other charities instead so I ignore that stuff.

 

[lxskllr]

UW isn't an organization I give money to, and I don't appreciate pressure from others to give to their charity of choice. I've never had a company ask that of me though. It's usually the employees shilling crap from their kid's school.

 

[Jeraden]

They have a campaign at my current job, but aren't pushy about it.

A place I worked a long time ago, they were very high pressure about getting you to sign up. I didn't sign up, and I got individually pulled aside to say that I was the only one not contributing in the department, and they are trying to achieve 100% participation, blah blah blah. So I basically felt coerced into contributing money to them.

 

[sze5003]

I don't know if they can tell who contributes or not. I'm sure they can. Last year I didn't. This year I also got a raise but my take home pay didn't change it was actually less due to social security going back to normal rate.

If they want to donate to pay my monthly student loans I'll donate a percentage of my salary. I usually say I donated to another charity of my choice. For example, make a wish foundation all proceeds go to the kids, st jude same thing, salvation army, etc.

 

[MaxDepth]

I don't know how your local united way is run but our UW doesn't give the donations to the national headquarters. Instead, you give either directly to the local UW and then they parcel out the donation to those charities and organizations that have their proposals approved or you can also select national and local charities to be the direct beneficiary of your donation.

I donate and have my donation split 50/50, half to United Way and half to the food banks in the region.

EDIT: Through my company, I am able to donate pre-tax which lowers my overall tax rate.

 

[sze5003]

I don't know how your local united way is run but our UW doesn't give the donations to the national headquarters. Instead, you give either directly to the local UW and then they parcel out the donation to those charities and organizations that have their proposals approved or you can also select national and local charities to be the direct beneficiary of your donation.

I donate and have my donation split 50/50, half to United Way and half to the food banks in the region.

EDIT: Through my company, I am able to donate pre-tax which lowers my overall tax rate.

I'm pretty sure they have their main executives come here for rallies and stuff with meetings. I'm not sure how it's set up. The web link they send you does not let you choose where to send the money they just take it from the paycheck.

 

[Imp]

Yep, and I always just throw the envelope in a corner.

My personal get-rich scheme involves starting my own “human fund”.

 

[Raincity]

Yes and I hate that crap. My employer makes you fill out a donation form every year even if you don't want to contribute. I give them nothing and always catch crap every year from somebody on the executive team about it.

 

[sze5003]

Yes and I hate that crap. My employer makes you fill out a donation form every year even if you don't want to contribute. I give them nothing and always catch crap every year from somebody on the executive team about it.

Yeah it's every year but they say it's also anonymous..who knows.

 

[Red Storm]

Any charity that tries to pressure you into donating is suspect.

 

[ultimatebob]

I used to be the "donation Nazi" for several years when I used to work at IBM, where I had to track down the people who didn't fill out the online donation form and ask them to fill it out.

You would be amazed by how many people would flat out lie to your face and say they filled out the online form when they never bothered to look at it. I knew they were full of it, too, because I had a spreadsheet filled with the names of people who didn't fill out the form that was just updated the day before. Hell... I even had records on whether or not you opened the e-mail with a link to the form. Lotus Notes is evil like that

It's not like I was begging for money, either... My job was to make sure that you checked "not interested" on the damn form if you didn't want to donate.

 

[vi edit]

Yep, they push it pretty hard. To the point where we have sessions where they hand out forms and have HR reps onsite to fill out autodeduction forms.

I choose to support local food shelters instead. $50 buys 25 people thanksgiving dinners. $125 pays for food for around 10 people for a week. It's local and the money actually goes nearly 100% towards the cause.

 

[Red Storm]

I choose to support local food shelters instead. $50 buys 25 people thanksgiving dinners. $125 pays for food for around 10 people for a week. It's local and the money actually goes nearly 100% towards the cause.

Good stuff.

 

[sze5003]

Yep, they push it pretty hard. To the point where we have sessions where they hand out forms and have HR reps onsite to fill out autodeduction forms.

I choose to support local food shelters instead. $50 buys 25 people thanksgiving dinners. $125 pays for food for around 10 people for a week. It's local and the money actually goes nearly 100% towards the cause.

I see no issues doing this.

But who knows what the big companies do if they are so keen on getting 100% participation maybe managers get a bonus too.

 

[Soundmanred]

Fuckin ridicules!

 

[CPA]

I don't know if they can tell who contributes or not. I'm sure they can. Last year I didn't. This year I also got a raise but my take home pay didn't change it was actually less due to social security going back to normal rate.

If they want to donate to pay my monthly student loans I'll donate a percentage of my salary. I usually say I donated to another charity of my choice. For example, make a wish foundation all proceeds go to the kids, st jude same thing, salvation army, etc.

My company used to but they stopped in 2013.

United Way doesn't track perse. However, they will bill an amount based on initial pledges, but the company can amend the invoice based on terminations and changes. I know because I used to handle it for my company.

 

[Vic Vega]

I worked for a local UW in the mid 1990s and none of our money went to the "big" UW. Our President at the time made about 100K IIRC. Our UW was very transparent about how money was distributed and published a group of organizations it funded. On top of that you could specify where you wanted your money to go and by law it has to.

Back then we were broke. Anyone who thinks otherwise is delusional. We didn't have money for damn near anything and our office was falling apart. Something like 90 cents on the dollar went to organizations. All of our equipment was old and dilapidated, basically everything was a donation.

I never participate in the corporate campaigns though.

Some companies do what's called "loaned executives" where the company loans UW some employees (usually sales or HR people) to assist with the campaign (free labor) which is really awesome.

If you don't like UW don't contribute, it's that easy.

 

[Svnla]

Yes. Every year. I just gave them $10 for one time donation every year because our department goal was 100% participation. I rather pick and choose my own charity.

 

[CPA]

I see no issues doing this.

But who knows what the big companies do if they are so keen on getting 100% participation maybe managers get a bonus too.

Um that would be a big NO, big companies don't pay anything to managers. You might have a prize drawing, but it would be for everyone that submitted a card regardless if they donated. Or maybe, like my company did, they gave jeans passes for two weeks for anyone who submitted their card. Paying managers to get employees to sign up for UW, LMAO. Jeez Louise some of you don't have a clue how things work in big companies.

 

[Vic Vega]

Trust me. No one gets a bonus. Not your boss, not the UW staff.

I know someone at the local UW I worked at who started in 1993 at $34K and is still there today making $48K. It's truly a charity, no one is getting rich.

For those complaining about the President's pay... this persons connections and contacts generate probably 50% of the revenue, so, it's well worth it to pay this person. You are buying their experience, connections, etc.

 

[Red Squirrel]

My company does too, at least they did, have not heard of it in a while so not sure if it stopped. After hearing how lot of these "charities" have ridiculously high payed staff I kinda get skeptical about donating money. I really want to help people in need but it's hard to tell what charity I should be donating to. I imagine sticking to the small local ones is better as well as food bank (giving actual food). I sometimes give to the SPCA as well, but even then, they are pretty big so even there I am skeptical as to where my money really goes.

 

[OutHouse]

the air force pushed this shit hard every year. of all people they can strong arm its the military because giving to the United way is good and you are a piece of shit if you dont have 10 bucks taken out of your check every payday.

god i hated that exploitation.