Also, does FreeRepublic have any sort of a 501(c) status?
Run your own employee giving campaign with the UW as one of the designated beneficiaries on your pre-printed form, along with the Salvation Army, the Red Cross and any other local 501(c)(3) of importance, plus a blank space for write-ins. The local Boy Scouts council is probably a good one. TAKE BACK YOUR EMPLOYEE GIVING PROGRAM FROM THE POLITICALLY CORRECT UW; give it back to your employees.
If you designate a 501(c) organization, your employer normally sends your entire donation directly to the 501(c) charity.
If no designation is made the United Fund keeps on average 20% of your donation (salaries, advertising, etc.) for themselves and passes on the remainder to various charities of their choosing.
(2) You can donate to any 501(c) organization you want too without the United Way taking 14% off the top. You should also be aware that if the ornagization is one that they have budgeted $100,000 for, and you give a $1000 earmarked for that organization, it still gets $100,000, and the United Way has $1000 more from its un earmarked funds to give to other organizations. Your target organization may not be helped. Just write a check to them.
patent
I put "0" in the amount. My boss threatened my job, but I held my ground. To this date, I haven't been motivated to give them @#$$ one thin dime.
Your title says it all. I don't give to shakedown organizations and that is what they do. I never know if I'm going to get fired. I know it's against the law to fire someone for not giving, but it would be hard to prove.
Everyone should be free to designate to whom their charitable money goes, shakedowns be damned; I for one choose not to donate 1/6th of a pledge towards some campaign "victory" party.
The United Way has been involved in massive corporate shakedowns for many years. I work at a company where promotions were once partially based on a manager's UW contributions total. It led to some confrontations, and after a while the policy was changed.
To my mind, many of the observations made here are both correct and irrelevant. Here's my take on it, and on charity in general:
As in many other endeavors, the importance of a clear objective and a feedback system that will let you know whether you're moving toward it or away from it cannot be overstated.
"The poor will always be with us." -- Abraham Lincoln
Freedom, Wealth, and Peace,
Francis W. Porretto
Visit the Palace Of Reason: http://palaceofreason.com
The UW is another bureaucracy whose purpose is to give to another charity? Why not give it to the charity directly? Any recent moves by UW to imply that the money they take will be forwarded in toto to a designated charity is an ADMISSION that such is not the typical practice of UW. UW talk about "no overhead" is a direct ADMISSION of the redundancy of UW. I suspect UW says such things now because people in general are becoming more aware of direct distributions and "overhead" i.e., bureaucracy expenses/taxation. (I am at least)
Additionally, looking at the UW types, I feel many are corporate board rejects, and UW is kind of a nepotisitic depository for types who don't fit in, can't cut it, or can't get with the program. Welfare for incompetents, their salaries paid by a sort of second taxation on charitable giving.
The trouble you run into is a property of money called fungibility. This means that, once you put a dollar into a pool of money you can't ever be sure what happens to that dollar.
Suppose the UW had decided to give 10% of their money to Planned Parenthood this year. You decide to give $10/month to some 2nd Ammendment supporting organization. They still give $1 of your $10 to Planned Parenthood. That's because they still give 10% to PP and your $10 goes into that calculation.
Just give your money where you like. Tell the UW to take a hike. Tell them to take a hike with the Boy Scouts.
The'll just love that.
Shalom.
In addition, when my employer does the United Way drive, they use the participation % numbers to toot their own horn.
Jesus said in Matthew 6: 3 - 5:
"But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing,so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full."
Instead, I give to the church I attend and to foreign Christian missions.
Say your local Girl Scout Council is budgeted to receive $200,000. You decide you want to give them (target) your entire contribution of $100/ month. Does the Girl Scout Council then receive $201,200 for the year? Nope. They still get $200,000 of which $1,200 specifically comes from you. In this case it typically costs the Girl Scout Council the price of a thank you card and stamp to personally thank you for the contribution. They end up getting less. The only way the Girl Scout Council will receive more than $200,000 is for a lot of people to do what you did.
Another thing the United Way does that irritates me is they redirect funds. I live in Beavercreek, Ohio an outlying community of Dayton. The United Way here is run out of Dayton (Montgomery County). They collect about $2,000,000 from Greene County (including Beavercreek) out of which only $700,000 makes it's way back to Greene County charitable organizations. The United Way rep told me that I benefit from the organizations in Dayton that receive the lions share of area contributions. I told him the last time I took my child to Children's Medical Center they charged me 3 times the going rate because I had insurance, and there's no way I want any of my funds supporting Planned Parenthood. He said I could make a targeted contribution (refer to 1st example). I told him I knew how the system worked, and he agreed with me. Needless to say, I contribute directly to the organizations I want to support.