The Combined Federal Campaign and You

A webinar presented by the FEW Foundation for Education and Training

“To empower career achievement through education and training.”www.fewfoundation.org

The Combined Federal Campaign and You

Dawn Nester, President of the FEW Foundation for Education and Training, and Valerie Stringer, Regional Manager for the DC Metro Region of FEW, are your presenters today.

Dawn will give an overview of the Combined Federal Campaign that is consistent throughout all campaigns.

Thank you, Jack.

The official web site for information about the Combined Federal Campaign (CFC) is through the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) at www.opm.gov/cfc.

This web site provides the regulations that governs the CFC, as well as additional resources.

The mission of the CFC is to promote and support philanthropy through a program that is employee focused, cost-efficient, and effective in providing all federal employees the opportunity to improve the quality of life for all.

The CFC is the ONLY sanctioned charitable giving program allowed in the federal government.

While OPM provides oversight, each of the 300 CFC’s nationwide and overseas have their own Local Federal Coordinating Committee (LFCC).

The LFCC’s are comprised of federal employees from the agencies represented in their area. For example, I serve on the LFCC for the Northern New England CFC.

As a member of the LFCC, I represent my agency (IRS) and vote on issues such as what types of recognition items will be offered to contributors, whether the geographic area will be expanded to include other areas, whether the campaign will offer on-line pledging, as well as sitting on various subgroups.

Federal employees screen local applications for participation in each year’s campaign. OPM screens the organizations in the national and international sections of your catalog.

A charitable organization accepted in one year will NOT be automatically accepted in succeeding years. Charitable organizations must apply and be screened annually.

The screening subgroup follows OPM-prescribed factors in order to include a charitable organization, such as completed audits to ensure the organization is in good standing with the IRS, that the organization is actually doing the work it states it does, and the application is complete and timely.

The LFCC does not process pledges. However, it does review the applications of companies that submit bids for consideration to be a campaign Principal Combined Financial Organization (PCFO). OPM provides the guidelines for the review process.

The most well-known PCFO, perhaps, is your local United Way but they are not the only ones who offer bids.

Global Impact handles PCFO duties for the National Capital Area.

The PCFO processes your pledges and ensures that the charitable organizations receive your pledges timely and efficiently.

However, no pledge will be processed until the books are closed for a campaign year and the resulting audit matches to the penny.

Payroll deductions are generally started with the first pay period of the new year following the close of a campaign.

However, the first pay out to a charitable organization is generally in late April, early May. The gap is due to the audit that must take place at the end of the campaign and determining whether a qualifying charitable organization will receive a lump-sum payout or a quarterly distribution.

The amount of the total pledges determines the type of payout a charitable organization receives. The minimum for a quarterly distribution is $5,000 in pledges. Anything less than $5,000 is paid out in a lump sum one-time distribution.

Charitable organizations apply for the CFC because the funds are a steady, reliable revenue stream.

If you have doubts about the value of pledging through the CFC to your favorite charitable organization, call them and ask. Many will tell you they would prefer you pledge through your CFC because (1) having a steady, reliable revenue stream leaves them freer to do the work of their organization and (2) typically, a person will give more through payroll deduction than they will writing a one-time check.

Not too many of us can write a one-time check of $650 in today’s economy but some of us can afford $25 per pay period over 26 pay periods, which equals $650.

Of course, your favorite charitable organization will be grateful for any amount you choose to contribute any way you chose to participate.

Federal employees nationwide, as well as overseas, have contributed over $1 billion dollars to their favorite organizations over the past five years.

The most amazing thing about that statistic is not the dollar amount.

What makes that statistic so amazing is that participation in the CFC has been gradually declining over the last several years.

Several factors have contributed to the declining participation rate, including, but not limited to:

retirement by many of the Baby Boomer generation, tough economic times, new employees not being introduced to the CFC unless it is to say, “Tag…you’re it!” to be an office Keyworker with little to no experience in campaign management, and,

employees who aren’t asked to participate.

A survey indicated that over 50 percent of the respondents didn’t participate because they weren’t asked to do so.

If you have not received your campaign material, please consider seeking out your Keyworker to request the brochure and pledge card or use your agency’s on-line option, if offered.

You will only be solicited to participate in your office. If you are handed materials outside your agency’s building, chances are the materials represent a specialty group to encourage you to pledge to their charitable groups. The people distributing the material are not representing your official campaign.

If your favorite organization is not listed in your catalog, contact the organization and ask to talk to whomever handles marketing for the organization. Encourage the organization to visit their local CFC or the OPM web site for information for charitable organizations and apply for the next year’s campaign. Chances are the marketing person (1) hasn’t heard about CFC or (2) doesn’t know how the process works. Applications are generally submitted in January of each year.

The CFC isn’t just about making pledges. Oftentimes, someone we know has either been helped by a charitable organization or volunteers for an organization in the catalog.

Sometimes someone in your family has been helped and you never knew about it.

As a member of the Northern New England CFC, I recently attended training. Two of the participants shared their stories.

One trainee recently learned that her son has autism and is receiving help.

The other trainee learned that her family received help from a local food pantry when she was a child and she never knew it.

Both organizations participate in the CFC.

I shared that my daughter and son-in-law have been recipients of the services of their local Visiting Nurses Association when he was injured in a motorcycle accident earlier this year. My mother, who has Alzheimers, participates in the VNA adult day care program where I live in a different county from my daughter.

Personal stories make a campaign “real” for many potential donors. If you have been a recipient or volunteer for an organization listed in your catalog, consider sharing your story with your co-workers. Your story can positively influence a campaign’s results.

There is another side to the CFC that isn’t talked about as much but is also important.

The other aspect of a CFC is how you can become personally involved:

as a Keyworker, as a Campaign Manager, or, as a Loaned Executive.

If you are solicited to be a Keyworker, give it serious consideration before saying, “I’m too busy.”

You can develop work-related skills by being involved in a campaign including, but not limited to:

project management, leadership, influence, and, communication (verbal and written).

A successful Keyworker will develop a plan to personally contact everyone in her or his area (project management), encourage participation (leadership), have an impact on co-workers’ decisions (influence), and may be asked to make a presentation about the CFC during a staff meeting (communication).

Campaigns are organized differently from agency to agency but the above points are fairly common across the board.

Depending on your agency’s evaluative process, you may be able to include what you learn through active participation in the CFC in your self-assessment under the appropriate Critical Element or Core Factor, as well.

This will be especially true if your agency participates in the local Loaned Executive (LE) program.

An LE is someone who is literally loaned to the PCFO for the duration of the campaign, usually from August to December, possibly longer for larger campaign areas.

An LE assists the PCFO with such facets of the campaign as Keyworker Training, agency kick-offs, charity fairs within agencies, and can be assigned specific agencies within their area for larger campaign areas, such as in the Washington metropolitan area.

I was privileged to serve as an LE in 2001 while working in the D.C. metropolitan area. I was assigned eight agencies, the smallest having 3 people and the largest having over 7,000 employees.

By campaign’s end, I had enhanced her interpersonal relationship, communication, presentation, and project management skills that translated well to her day-to-day job when I returned to my agency.

If your agency doesn’t participate in an LE program in your area, seek information about the program from your local PCFO and present it to your management. Chances are they haven’t been solicited to provide an LE or don’t know much about the developmental skills aspect of the program or don’t know what’s involved in providing an employee for the program.

As was observed earlier, the CFC isn’t just about pledging, as satisfying as it is to know you’re helping the organizations you support.

I am going to turn this portion of the presentation over to Valerie Stringer, Regional Manager for the DC Metro Region.

Thank you, Dawn.

I also serve on the FEW Foundation’s Council of Advisors.

For those of you who are listening in from the DC Metropolitan area, we are pleased to announce that the FEW Foundation for Education and training is listed in your 2009 campaign catalog for the second year in a row.

The Foundation’s Board of Trustees and Council of Advisors were very grateful to the contributors of the 2008 campaign who helped us continue to bring our webinar series to members and non-members at no cost.

Through the generosity of our contributors in 2008, we were also able to provide scholarships to FEW’s regions to allow members to attend local regional training programs. Joyce Gottlieb from the Women on the Move Chapter was the DC Metro Region’s 2009 RTP scholarship recipient.

We are currently in conversation with FEW’s Scholarship Chair to develop an additional National Training Program scholarship to the 2010 NTP in New Orleans in July.

By now, those of you who are members in the DC Metro Region should have received a joint letter from Dawn and I encouraging your continued support of the FEW Foundation through your agency’s CFC for 2009.

The FEW Foundation’s CFC number is 83798.

As Dawn noted earlier, any contribution made either in cash, check, or by payroll deduction will be greatly appreciated.

The FEW Foundation uses CFC contributions wisely. I encourage you to review the one-page handout that shows what we can do with $1 per pay period as well as higher amounts.

The next FEW Foundation webinar will be held on December 11th at noon Eastern time. The topic will be “PowerPoint Tips and Tricks.” Nikki Follis, a faculty member from Grantham University, will be our presenter.

You may register for this webinar now by clicking on the active link in this handout, posted on our website (www.fewfoundation.org).

Thank you for your participation in today’s webinar.

“To empower career achievement through education and training.”