The United Way System is making a concerted effort to eliminate freedom of choice in workplace giving.

Depending on local United Way policies, the techniques to replace donor freedom of choice in giving include:

1. Simply banning gifts to anyone other than United Way itself.
2. Charging additional fees to process gifts donors earmark to individual charities. In other words, "taxing" them.
3. Only permitting gifts to individual charities if the gifts are of a certain size, making it more expensive for donors to choose. The gift size requirement is sometimes buried in the United Way campaign literature. Often, if a donor makes a gift that is not large enough, the United Way simply pockets the money.
4. Allowing gifts to be donor-designated only to "human care" charities, a decision the United Way will make retroactively after receiving the gift. If the United Way determines that the chosen charity is not a "human care" charity, the United Way pockets the money. Thus, whole categories of charities are eliminated from consideration - animal shelters, environmental groups, medical research charities, etc. In fact, since United Way itself determines what is and what is not a "human service" charity, almost any charity can be eliminated. In one recent case a United Way ruled that even a charity that materially supports orphanages was not a human service charity.

What's Behind This Change In United Way Policy:

Led by the United Way of America, the United Way system is moving from one that supports a broad variety of charities to one that only funds a handful of special interest charities. The new approach is not like the traditional one-gift-for-all "united way" campaigns of the past. It is more like the "private foundation" approach, where charities write grant proposals and the United Way decides whether to fund them. Only a few types of charities are eligible to submit requests for grants. In addition, instead of giving money to grantee charities, many times the United Way will use contributions to fund staff positions within United Way itself.

These additional staff members are supposed to be "conveners" or "advocates" or "organizers." In other words, their job is to go to meetings. They don't, for example, actually feed the hungry; they "advocate" for others to do so.

Why This Paradigm Shift Is Important

From the United Way's point of view, donors deciding for themselves which charities they wish to support - instead of relying on the United Way to make these decisions - is contrary to the United Way's self-appointed role of "community decider." The more money designated to charities by donors the less money United Way has to make its grants or expand its bureaucracy. "We don't want to be a mere pass-through organization," is a comment one hears from many United Way leaders. (It's a talking point scripted by United Way of America.) Thus, it is in United Way's self-interest to discourage donor choice.

This attitude discourages many donors from giving at work. The problem with that is that workplace giving is the most cost-effective method for donors to support charities ever invented. Because of employer support covering most of the structural costs of the fund drive, giving at work is the most cost-efficient way to give. United Way's campaign to disenfranchise independent givers is costing American charities hundreds of millions of dollars in lost or diverted contributions.

Many Donors Don't Have A Choice

Naturally, many workplace givers are reacting to the "new United Way" by not giving at all at work. Instead, they bypass the United Way, giving to the charities of their choice directly. There is a trend, for example, to replace the traditional United Way automatic recurring payroll allotments with automatic recurring credit card gifts. The credit card gifts can be made directly to the charity; there is no need to involve the United Way in the processing.

Furthermore, a number of companies have taken their at-work fund drives out of United Way's hands. Instead, the companies run the fund drives in-house. Almost universally, these companies allow their employees to choose any charity at all to receive their gifts. An added benefit to this approach is that the recipient charities receive more money because United Way doesn't get its "cut."

Unfortunately, however, there are still many companies that put the interests of the United Way ahead of its employees' right to choose. Employees find they are "strongly encouraged" to support the United Way. Sometimes the pressure is subtle. Sometimes it is direct. In either case, whenever one's choice of whether to support United Way can have a negative impact on one's job or career, there is definitely a disincentive to complain.

Not Every United Way Agrees

Not every local United Way has bought into this new approach. There are still United Ways out there that respect donors' intelligence and ability to make their own decisions as to which charities they will fund. These United Ways need to be recognized and supported.