Pledges to the 2017 annual federal-employee charity drive fell to $101 million, a nearly 40 percent drop from the 2016 effort, according to numbers from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management. The federal drive, known as the Combined Federal Campaign, is an important source of support for many nonprofits and one of the largest workplace charity drives in the United States.
Last year’s drop in pledges is the steepest the drive has seen since 2009, when the campaign peaked at $283 million in pledged contributions to charities. That pledge figure has fallen steadily since then, however.
Campaign Delayed
The decrease last year was in large part because of new rules and systems the Office of Personnel Management — which runs the charity drive — tried for the first time, participating nonprofits say.
In 2017, the federal government established a central administrator to manage the program, replacing local ones — though it still assigned promotional and some administrative duties to “outreach coordinators” in the 36 regions in which campaigns are active.
It also launched a new online system for employees to make donations.
The 2017 campaign started later than usual, launching in October rather than September. The federal government said the late start allowed local participants time to adjust to the changes. A separate federal employee-giving drive aimed at helping people hurt by last year’s three major hurricanes was another cause of the delay of the Combined Federal Campaign, according to the Office of Personnel Management.
Complaints of Errors
The new online system for employee pledges was not ready until midway through October, according to government — which caused further delays. Even then, many nonprofits complained of glitches with the search function of the new digital portal that made it hard for employees to find charities.
Even so, federal officials note that 80 percent of people who went online to give completed the process, and the number of people who contacted the customer-service center regarding the system’s search function accounted for less than 1 percent of calls for help.
The federal government also charged new upfront fees to participating nonprofits to pay for administering the campaign, rather than deducting from proceeds after the drive — as had been done in the past. That reduced the number of nonprofits participating, said Marshall Strauss, chief executive of the Workplace Giving Alliance, a consortium of federations that participate in the CFC.
“It was a perfect storm of mistakes,” said Strauss.
OPM, however, notes that many of the charities that dropped from the campaign had previously not raised any money through it. “Gone are the days of publishing a directory of charities in which 65 percent get no designations,” a spokesman said in an email.
Adding Retired Workers
The federal government has stated in the past that the new system should offer greater benefits. For instance, federal retirees can now participate, and employees can pledge volunteer time as well as money. Nearly $3 million worth of volunteer time was pledged during the 2017 campaign, according to the Office of Personnel Management.
