Federal Charity Drive Needs a Makeover

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

To the Editor:

Over the last several months, The Chronicle has published two articles referencing the Combined Federal Campaign, federations that hire the for-profit company Maguire/Maguire to manage them (“For Charity and for Profit,” March 8), and 12 Arizona charities that raise money through the federal drive (“Unclear Connections,” June 14).

Your articles do more than raise a red flag about CFC eligibility criteria and questionable charity and federation practices. They call out for a “makeover” of the CFC, once referred to by many of us as the premier workplace-giving campaign in the world.

Far more than ever, campaigns of state and local governments and top corporate campaigns, including the Fortune 500, have been reinvigorated with the participation of broad and diverse charity choices from America’s Charities, Community Health Charities, Earth Share, Global Impact, the Black United Fund, and Community Shares organizations, nonprofit federations run without outsourcing critical functions to a consulting firm.

For individual charities, income growth comes from these varied public and private-sector campaigns, which generate some 90 percent of all payroll-deduction giving, not from the CFC.

In the Sarbanes-Oxley era, the role of for-profits in the nonprofit environment deserves a closer look. Nonprofits are held more accountable than ever to practice transparency and due diligence, and to meet the highest standards of ethical behavior. They must also avoid conflicts of interest that improperly enrich staff, board members, or consultants with a vested interest. When the Maguire/Maguire firm is involved with more than 20 nonprofit federations, apparently for CFC participation, the motivation is clear and the method is specious.

More than ever, many federations beyond the United Way are playing an important role in employee-giving campaigns that produce $2-billion a year for charities. They are actively engaged in growing campaign participation for their members beyond the CFC. Most are also working closely with public and private-sector employers to ensure the integrity and success of their campaigns.

In the upside-down world of the CFC, inadequate attention is paid to enforcing the letter and spirit of charity and federation eligibility criteria. As a result, the CFC includes organizations that have been created just to be listed in the campaign, charities that have cloned themselves several times to gain multiple listings before employees and donors, and still other groups with fund-raising and administrative costs of 90 percent or more.

It’s as if Sgt. Schultz of Hogan’s Heroes were manning the entrance to the CFC. Remember him? In response to the commandant, his refrain was predictable: “I know nothing!”

Leon Feinerman
Chairman
Don Sodo
President and Chief Executive Officer
America’s Charities
Chantilly, Va.