Donate to this charity we support! Please, please, PLEASE?!

[lachesis]

Guess what? You just were. :-P

People, take this as a warning, step up to the bullying.

I know I was. That was last year when there was not an option to decline donating. Yeah, mandatory donation. What an oxymoron! I never thought I'd see that one...

I haven't seen any propaganda floating through the email yet, but I'm prepared this time. It'll be a "no" times a million even if the boss gives me a hard time about it. I'll donate double to my favorite charities if I can afford it just because the one my company supports is so vile to me.

[KiaKat]

I know I was. That was last year when there was not an option to decline donating. Yeah, mandatory donation. What an oxymoron! I never thought I'd see that one...

No such thing.

The company CAN NOT force you to donate. They CAN NOT tell you what to do with your money. They may make it incredibly difficult, but you have the right to say NO.

There is always an option to decline.

[PepperElf]

Oh great... I forgot about charity time. My company does this with the same "charity" I believe the OP is talking about. My company does all of their donating at an online website. Every employee is required to fill out the form, but there is a choice for "I do not wish to donate at this time". Last year, we were again told that we should take a percentage out of our paychecks for the year to donate. I said screw that and attempted to write a check for $5 just to get them to leave me alone.

Oh, wait, they don't take checks less than $10? Fine. I'll give you $10 THIS YEAR, but it'll be a big fat zilch next year. This charity is EPIC FAIL and I refuse to be pressured into donating to a charity I dislike.

I was a bad Pepper. I never even turned the forms back in at my last job.

I much prefer how the government / military does it - CFC (Combined Federal Campaign). In the Navy there's only two charities that are officially allowed to run campaigns for donations - CFC & the Navy Marine Relief Society. Sometimes a small command may help out with food banks etc, but that's about it. Neither was mandatory, except for "100% contact".

NMRS was pretty straight forward - they provided financial relief to squids & jarheads for various issues.

CFC was whatever you wanted it to be. They had thousands of causes to pick, from a large range of viewpoints. And the charities have 4-digit code designations to use on the forms. So if your boss donated to Charity X whom you dislike etc and you donated to Charity Y... you wouldn't really know each other's decisions unless you discussed it. And for the most part that was kept to a minimum too.


I kinda wish civilian companies would consider starting this up. It could in fact generate money for many causes, instead of trying to funnel employees into donating to things that they may find offensive.

[MadMike]

I was a bad Pepper. I never even turned the forms back in at my last job.

I never did either. They would put the forms in our mailboxes, with our employee info prefilled, and all we needed to do was pick an amount, sign it and turn it in. They told us they wanted them back even if we weren't donating, but I always threw that shit right into the trash. Never heard any complaints about it, and they eventually stopped doing it. In fact, I forgot all about it until I saw this thread.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

I never filled that shit out, either.

I'd tell them pretty firmly and early on that it didn't have anything to do with my job and I prefer not to discuss private family matters, such as which charities we give to, in a work environment.

The filling out of the papers, "even if I wasn't going to contribute" I made clear had nothing to do with my job, was outside the scope of my job, and wasn't anything an outside company needed. It was an outside thing and as such, not something I'd be participating in.

I didn't go to the "mandatory" meetings, either. Unless we're discussing my job, it's not mandatory. In fact, I have walked out of them as soon as it became obvious what it was. Nobody ever had the balls to challenge me on it again, after I told someone, "Oh, I'm too busy today doing my job to waste time in an unrelated outside thing. I have work to do."

I didn't phrase or intone it in such a way as to invite any more discussion. In fact, I phrased it in such a way as to suggest I would consider further pressure to be a something I'd only be willing to discuss down in Human Resources.

Nobody ever took me up on that. I don't know, something in my voice, I think. I don't hide annoyance well.

[Merriweather]

.

The filling out of the papers, "even if I wasn't going to contribute" I made clear had nothing to do with my job, was outside the scope of my job, and wasn't anything an outside company needed. It was an outside thing and as such, not something I'd be participating in.

Trying to make everyone fill out papers even when not contributing is a great way for the charity to get personal info on those who don't donate - and they can then be added to snail mail, email and phone solicitation lists.

I once sent a small guilt donation to one of those charities who send you address labels or greeting cards or some such thing free, as for once it was something I actually thought I would use, so I thought it fair to "pay" them.. Never again, no matter what they send me. I was literally bombarded with requests for donations after that, took years for it to stop (even though I never donated to them again).

[RecoveringKinkoid]

See, that's exactly what they're preying on...your sense of duty and fairness. What a thing to exploit.

Few things make me angrier than a brazen attempt to manipulate me.

Needless to say, those companies get nothing from me. I figure if they can afford to send random shit to strangers on a mailing list, they aren't hurting for cash all that badly after all.

The filling out papers even if you're not participating is an attempt to manipulate and shame. It's kind of embarrassing and intimidating to put your name and address and all this personal info and then fill in "0" contributiions, innit? Takes a certain willingness to be a little in-your-face about your refusal to play nice.

If you refuse to follow the script at all, they tend to leave you alone about it. Because at the end of the day, they don't like confrontation any more than anyone else does.

[PepperElf]

ya the only time i respected the "you have to turn it back in, even if you donate nothing" was when I was military. mainly cos ... well I did donate, but also because in this case it was a lawful order.

usually picked something different each time, save for the DAV. always picked them no matter what.

but for my last civilian job. i didn't even tell them to shove it. i just ignored it completely.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

At the swamp, we don't fill out papers. The donation process is done on the computer.

A manager sits me down at a computer, opens the charity's web page, and leaves the vicinity as I put in that I would like to donate the tidy sum of no dollars and zero cents.

Yes, you have to do the computer thing even if you don't wish to donate.

[thatcrazyredhead]

My company does this, too, and in the past I've always contributed. I'm gonna be honest, though, and say that I donate this way primarily because it's easy, I only have to think about it once a year, but I can still feel good about myself for "helping the less fortunate." The other reason is because the company bribes us with weeks of casual dress, pizza parties, plus raffles including big ticket items like flat screen TVs and such. This year, though, things have been difficult financially and I'm looking for ways to feed more money into our budget with the hopes of getting bills paid off ASAP. I figure when the time comes I'll make the necessary $1 donation to qualify for the bribes, but discontinue my customary per paycheck donation. If that makes me an ass, well, it's one more thing on a long list, my friends.