United Way Donations

[smiley]

My employer is a major United Way contributor and our yearly meetings are coming up where we have to decide what give.

Here is a question that I couldn't find the answer to...

Say I donate $5/wk to UW. UW takes a % of that $5 for their operational costs then it is extended to an organization that needs to money. Is there another % taken out from that organization for their operational costs?

I want to know how much of my actual $5/wk goes to the organization. I want to see it being used for the community and not for the UW and the organization to run.

I hope I made sense with that!

ETA: I am not opposed to admin costs. I just want to know that 50% of my donation isn't going to that. I want to make sure the majority of the money is reaching the community.

[abeaverhausen]

I'm curious to see the answer to this. My employer encourages us to donate to United Way as well and I've always wondered how much is actually being used toward the community.

[Becca]

Well, every organization has administration costs - there is no way around that. And obviously the larger the org, the more it costs to run.

You can look at NFP's 990's at guidestar.org

You can also look at the statement of functional expenses in their audited financial statements to get an idea of the allocation of their spending

[Becca]

Also, when I see grants going from one org to another org, I see admin budgets generally between 5% and 25% (a huge range I know). Occasionally organizations will use grants coming to them 100% for their purpose, with no admin costs. But those admin costs need to be funded somehow - directors and accountants and marketing personnel don't work for free.

[smiley]

Aug 19, 2012 10:14:11 GMT -5 Becca said:

Also, when I see grants going from one org to another org, I see admin budgets generally between 5% and 25% (a huge range I know). Occasionally organizations will use grants coming to them 100% for their purpose, with no admin costs. But those admin costs need to be funded somehow - directors and accountants and marketing personnel don't work for free.

So, wouldn't it make more sense for me to donate directly to the organization rather than donating to UW? Then operation costs would only be taken one once from my donation rather than twice?

[smiley]

Aug 19, 2012 10:10:57 GMT -5 abeaverhausen said:

I'm curious to see the answer to this. My employer encourages us to donate to United Way as well and I've always wondered how much is actually being used toward the community.

My employer does too and I have never really given much thought to how much of money is actually used by the final organization.

I am trying to figure out if my money is going to good use or if I should look at donating to a specific organization in the community.

[Becca]

Aug 19, 2012 10:18:22 GMT -5 smiley said:

Aug 19, 2012 10:14:11 GMT -5 Becca said:

Also, when I see grants going from one org to another org, I see admin budgets generally between 5% and 25% (a huge range I know). Occasionally organizations will use grants coming to them 100% for their purpose, with no admin costs. But those admin costs need to be funded somehow - directors and accountants and marketing personnel don't work for free.

So, wouldn't it make more sense for me to donate directly to the organization rather than donating to UW? Then operation costs would only be taken one once from my donation rather than twice?

Yep.

I work primarily with governments, but I see this all the time.

The feds give a state (for example) 1,000,000 and the state takes at 10% admin fee and passes the money to a County - so the County gets 900,000. And then the County passes the money to a City (taking their admin fee) so the City gets 810,000. The City might spend some of that money on a project, and pass some on to a smaller unit of government. (and both the City and smaller unit of government take their admin cut)

At the end of the day, hundreds of thousands of dollars went to admin along the way.

If you know who you want your donation to go to - I would make it directly to that org. (unless there is some matching or other incentive to direct it through someone else)

[Becca]

(also, I should put the disclaimer that I don't work a lot with United Way, so others may have more details than me)

[ejpint]

Aug 19, 2012 10:20:54 GMT -5 jjwritergirl said:

If you are donating through your workplace you can pick a specific organization to receive your money (each UW non-profit has a code you can choose). I am new to a UW organization, but my understanding is that if you designate a code, your entire donation goes to that non-profit rather than UW taking a percent off the top. Only by not designating a code do they take a portion. (Someone is free to correct me if I'm wrong!) My non-profit really encourages people to designate our code because we end up with a lot more money that way.

As for the recipient organization, your donation will be used as a portion of their overall budget which is likely to include some admin costs in addition to their mission. Ditto looking at 990's to determine what percent is going to admin.

Unfortunately, this is not the case, at least for our United Way. They actually take a percentage off, plus if you're doing payroll deduction, they take an additional percentage off to protect themselves if you leave the company (since it's like a pledge rather than cash in hand).

[Kore]

My employer does not give us the option of specifying the org to which we'd like our donations to be used.

I'm team direct donation. I hate feeling strong armed by an employer & UW so that the employer can use the donation stats as marketing fodder. If they want to look charitable, they can donate the $$ from the company itself.

My H works for a large retailer. They're constantly sending us "look how awesome we are" promo crap. One time, it was a glossy mailer about how employees at a specific location raised $10k or something like that to give back to a needy person. It was so gross to me that the employees ponied up the cash, and the company spent god knows how much money making and sending these mailers out to tens of thousands of employees. They spent more money advertising the good deed than what was actually raised.

And now I look like a crazy person Excuse the tangent!

[LoveTrains]

Aug 19, 2012 10:08:05 GMT -5 smiley said:

My employer is a major United Way contributor and our yearly meetings are coming up where we have to decide what give.

Here is a question that I couldn't find the answer to...

Say I donate $5/wk to UW. UW takes a % of that $5 for their operational costs then it is extended to an organization that needs to money. Is there another % taken out from that organization for their operational costs?

I want to know how much of my actual $5/wk goes to the organization. I want to see it being used for the community and not for the UW and the organization to run.

I hope I made sense with that!

IMO, it is really ridiculous to say that you don't want any part of your contribution going to the administration of the nonprofit you are supporting. They need to pay their staff and keep the lights and heat on in their office to provide whatever services they do for the community.

If you are concerned about administrative costs for the nonprofits you support, you should look up their financial information at guidestar.

I am not sure if the united way "cut" of the donation varies per individual united way chapter, but the nonprofit I work for sometimes gets gifts from the united way. The united way takes a 4% cut for their administrative costs.

So of that $5, my organization would get $4.80. The united way would keep $0.20 to pay for the work they did in collecting the money and then distributing it to my organization.

ETA: And this is for money that people have specifically "coded" to give to my organization directly during their workplace united way campaign. That is the only way we get money from the united way. So yes, at least for the united way in my area, they take money off the top even if the gift was specifically coded for us and restricted to my organization.

[smiley]

Aug 19, 2012 10:54:01 GMT -5 LoveTrains said:

Aug 19, 2012 10:08:05 GMT -5 smiley said:

My employer is a major United Way contributor and our yearly meetings are coming up where we have to decide what give.

Here is a question that I couldn't find the answer to...

Say I donate $5/wk to UW. UW takes a % of that $5 for their operational costs then it is extended to an organization that needs to money. Is there another % taken out from that organization for their operational costs?

I want to know how much of my actual $5/wk goes to the organization. I want to see it being used for the community and not for the UW and the organization to run.

I hope I made sense with that!

IMO, it is really ridiculous to say that you don't want any part of your contribution going to the administration of the nonprofit you are supporting. They need to pay their staff and keep the lights and heat on in their office to provide whatever services they do for the community.

If you are concerned about administrative costs for the nonprofits you support, you should look up their financial information at guidestar.

I am not sure if the united way "cut" of the donation varies per individual united way chapter, but the nonprofit I work for sometimes gets gifts from the united way. The united way takes a 4% cut for their administrative costs.

So of that $5, my organization would get $4.80. The united way would keep $0.20 to pay for the work they did in collecting the money and then distributing it to my organization.

ETA: And this is for money that people have specifically "coded" to give to my organization directly during their workplace united way campaign. That is the only way we get money from the united way. So yes, at least for the united way in my area, they take money off the top even if the gift was specifically coded for us and restricted to my organization.

I didn't mean I don't want any money going to admin costs. I know there is going to be some costs associated with it for the organization to run. I just didn't want my $5 donation weekly to be mostly using for admin costs. I want to make sure a good portion is used for the community.

[vanillacourage]

It's smart to look at administrative costs when making your charitable contributions, but all nonprofits have them. They have staff, hard costs like buildings and office supplies, etc. You just want to look for a reasonable admin cost. At my nonprofit it's under 10%. I have seen as high as 25% at others, which is crazy IMO.

[aurora]

Aug 19, 2012 10:18:22 GMT -5 smiley said:

...
So, wouldn't it make more sense for me to donate directly to the organization rather than donating to UW? Then operation costs would only be taken one once from my donation rather than twice?

That's what I do. It doesn't look as good for my company, but I'd rather have more of my money go directly to the charity than have UW take a cut off the top.

As for each organization's administrative costs, I do agree that zero is an unreasonable number. I volunteer for a charity with no paid personnel at all and we still have some administrative costs (heat/electricity for the building we need to provide services, phone service, insurance, etc.).

[ddi741]

I hate the UW work drive.
I don't like feeling like I have to donate but its a huge deal @ my company. I usually write a check for $25 and it done. IMO charitable contributions should be personal and private.

[Deleted]

UW seems to get a bad rap on this board, but I support it. I figure that even if they are taking some money off the top (which they should, to cover their costs) they are still raising more money for smaller organizations than those organizations would on their own. For example our local crisis center gets a large amount of their donations through UW, so they don't have to spend their time and money running around the community raising money, rather they can keep a smaller staff that is focused on the mission and helping people because the money is being raised by someone else.

From my own perspective of my company's campaign - my company matches every dollar donated by employees, so I think they *should* be able to brag about that (and we don't much anyway, that I'm aware of!). My company is one of the biggest donors to UW in the area and I think that's great! I also like that I can do my pledge through payroll deduction because it forces me to make a regular donation whereas if I wanted to donate to the crisis center directly I'd have to remember to do that and make a point of continually prioritizing my donation. With payroll deduction I don't have to give it any thought but I'm still donating 2x a month.

Do companies really run these campaigns and not match or donate anything other than employee donations? I think that's shitty if so.

[bronxgirl]

I'm so glad I don't work for an organization that coerces employees to donate money. I also agree that administrative costs are a basic necessity in running an organization. If an organization has low admin costs, but is thusly disorganiuzed and poorly run than donation money is wasted mucvh more than paying what it costs to run things and ending up with well run programs.

[smiley]

Aug 19, 2012 14:03:09 GMT -5 @88mangoes said:

Aug 19, 2012 12:27:53 GMT -5 @buckybells said:

Do companies really run these campaigns and not match or donate anything other than employee donations? I think that's shitty if so.

Yes, yes they do. As well as pressure every single person to participate with a suggested donation(2% of your check, then increases each year is what I've seen). Some even publish results for all to see. It can get very nasty.

My company matches. I am not sure if they match dollar for dollar but I know they contributed millions of dollars to UW last year through their charity budget.

There is a lot of pressure in the work place to donate. Last year my husband was called into the office to speak to someone higher up because he didn't donate enough. He is a manager and apparently his contribution was too low. He was just given his sheet to contribute and he donated the same as this year. I hope something isn't said again. If it is I will have him cancel his donation all together. It seems like some locations try to guilt trip you into donating which is pretty shitty.

[Kore]

Aug 19, 2012 14:13:57 GMT -5 smiley said:

Aug 19, 2012 14:03:09 GMT -5 @88mangoes said:

Yes, yes they do. As well as pressure every single person to participate with a suggested donation(2% of your check, then increases each year is what I've seen). Some even publish results for all to see. It can get very nasty.

My company matches. I am not sure if they match dollar for dollar but I know they contributed millions of dollars to UW last year through their charity budget.

There is a lot of pressure in the work place to donate. Last year my husband was called into the office to speak to someone higher up because he didn't donate enough. He is a manager and apparently his contribution was too low. He was just given his sheet to contribute and he donated the same as this year. I hope something isn't said again. If it is I will have him cancel his donation all together. It seems like some locations try to guilt trip you into donating which is pretty shitty.

That is infuriating.

[cjeanette]

Aug 19, 2012 14:03:09 GMT -5 @88mangoes said:

Aug 19, 2012 12:27:53 GMT -5 @buckybells said:

Do companies really run these campaigns and not match or donate anything other than employee donations? I think that's shitty if so.

Yes, yes they do. As well as pressure every single person to participate with a suggested donation(2% of your check, then increases each year is what I've seen). Some even publish results for all to see. It can get very nasty.

yep. I don't really know if UW should get that blame as much as employers. I have worked at places that made it fun and didn't pressure anyone to do the paycheck donation. Which was often fine as we raised so much doing a UW week in Oct.

Where I work now does none of the fun stuff but pretty puts major pressure on every manager to be sure there is 100% participation. In the end the charities win over this, but still puts a bad taste in my mouth.

[smiley]

My location also puts on bake sales (this year it looks like we have 3 coming up). This money is used toward our total location goal which is usually around 20k for 100 associates. At the end of the campaign they always post how much the store raised as a total and if we met our goal etc.

[aurora]

Aug 19, 2012 12:27:53 GMT -5 @buckybells said:

...
Do companies really run these campaigns and not match or donate anything other than employee donations? I think that's shitty if so.

I imagine there are a lot of state and federal agencies that participate in the campaign but can't match donations (think what the taxpayers would say to that!)

[Deleted]

Aug 19, 2012 14:16:45 GMT -5 cjeanette said:

Aug 19, 2012 14:03:09 GMT -5 @88mangoes said:

Yes, yes they do. As well as pressure every single person to participate with a suggested donation(2% of your check, then increases each year is what I've seen). Some even publish results for all to see. It can get very nasty.

yep. I don't really know if UW should get that blame as much as employers. I have worked at places that made it fun and didn't pressure anyone to do the paycheck donation. Which was often fine as we raised so much doing a UW week in Oct.

Where I work now does none of the fun stuff but pretty puts major pressure on every manager to be sure there is 100% participation. In the end the charities win over this, but still puts a bad taste in my mouth.

Yikes! I agree this sounds like a problem with employers, not UW itself.

My employer is great with it - donations are optional but are encouraged, and to my knowledge no one goes through donations to make sure you donated "enough". I guess I'll know for sure this year - I got roped into handling pledges, lol.

In past years, it is just a fun week with a lot of events. You pay a few bucks to get a "tailgating" lunch, bake sales, other food sales, etc. There is always a silent auction and multiple events that involve music and other entertainment that you just have to make a minimal donation to attend. If you turn in a pledge form, you get entered in a drawing, and you don't have any minimum salary requirement - in fact I usually pledge a small amount out of each paycheck (I think I do $10 currently) and a small 1 time donation, plus the other sales and such. I have never felt any pressure to donate any particular amount, although I would probably feel a little weird staying out of all the events and donating NOTHING (but that's a non issue since I love that kind of crap and always participate). I probably donate an average of $20-50 the week of UW plus the payroll deduction, which is a very small percentage of my income. This has never been an issue at all.

Then my employer matches all donations 100%, so you can feel good that your donation is really twice as high as it is.

I guess since that's my only experience with a UW campaign, it is positive for me. I can see how being pressured would be a huge turnoff. I guess that's another reason why I love the place I work.