United Way and You

We've had these tactics at my current place, but I didn't realize how complicit we were until I switched to news.

Our assistant editor is on the board of directors of the local United Way, which makes sense to me now since he's always been the one to make the big speech every year about giving as much as you can blah, blah, blah.

And recently he's been adding these obtrusive paragraphs at the end of our news briefs for organizations that belong to the United Way.

"The XXXX XXXX is a United Way affiliate and is one of many local programs to benefit from the not-for-profit United Way campaign, etc."

It sticks out like a sore thumb and also causes space issues as we attempt to load as many briefs on a page as possible. I've started lopping the paragraphs off, and haven't heard anything yet.

 

Anonymous external emails to management complaining they are receving preferental treatment works best.Of course, that works best when the obtrusive paragraphs actually reach print

 

I would think a "mandatory" contribution would be highly illegal. Is it worth pursuing legally? Only if you're ready to tell management to take a flying fuck -- and you have another job lined up.

 

Trust me, plenty of these paragraphs still reach the paper...I only lop off the ones that run on my pages...

I'm sure I'll hear about it eventually...something to the effect of "T_B, why do you hate charities?"

 

Glad I'm not the only one who recognizes this. Certainly felt like it when I was the only one at the previous gig sitting out on the mandatory meetings, getting a glare from the publisher of all people.

I just don't understand why newspapers are happy to keep a shoulder-length distance from every organization except for this one ... it ain't right.

 

We had the United Way hard-sell at my shop recently. I wasn't there, but heard they trotted the local U-Way people out to tell sob stories about how much your money helped, then put the high-pressure pitch on, complete with our higher-ups suggesting people fill out their pledges before leaving the room.
We also had our HR director send around an email listing everyone who had given what they called their "fair share," which earned them an extra day of vacation time in return (of course, you're giving the company and U-Way money to do it).
I gave them $40 just to get them off my back.

 

I've also heard - and maybe some of you have too - that United Way is one of the few charity organizations newspapers can let in to pitch to their employees without also being forced to let in unionizers, too.....

 

Did you ask how much of the donation is actually going to charity? And why, since you have a list of 30-some charities on the list, why you should give to United Way instead of directly to the charity?

 

At the ginormous company a friend works at, if they have 100% employee participation in the UW campaign, they get summer hours (they can leave at 1 on Fridays) for an extra month. Try being the holdout in that situation!

 

What happens if the mayor gets arrested at 4 p.m. on Friday or there's, I don't know, a sporting event ... do the reporters just say, "Sorry, but I participated in my paper's extortion campaign ..."

 

Actually, you're next.