United Way/Planned Parenthood

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Every year, United Way makes a big push to get donations from people at my work. They provide a lunch and a pep rally, they take us to places to show where the money goes, etc. The problem is, SOME, not all affiliates of United Way, give money to Planned Parenthood. For that reason, I refuse to participate in any way in these annual fund raisers. Supposedly, the affiliate in my area does not fund PP. But to me, that’s beside the point. If any affiliate of United Way, anywhere, is funding abortions, even a dime, I consider the whole organization tainted. I’ve only been a Catholic for a little over a year, but to me, it would be a betrayal of my faith to give to United Way. Unless and until they take a position of not allowing any affiliate to give money to PP, I’m out. I don’t want any part of that connection to PP, in any way.
 
I think that is an admirable decision on your part. I would still shamelessly take their free lunches that they offer, if I was in your position. Haha.
 
Lots of people don’t like to give via the United Way. Years ago when I used to give - this was back in the days when offices would pretty much shame people who didn’t want to donate to it because teams were supposed to have 100 percent participation, I think they have backed off this now - I would designate particular charities to get my donation so it wouldn’t go to PP. I’d pick Catholic groups or domestic violence shelters.

I’m happy that now I work at places where we are not pushed to give to any of these large charity orgs. I really prefer to give at the grassroots level, like to someone’s Gofundme, or give to local animal charities, local Catholic charities, or churches, monasteries and missions.

I really think this idea of big corporate charities is no longer viable in this day and age, largely because of abortion or stem cell research or other things that we might not morally approve of, to say nothing of funding the salaries for the executives of these places when we really want our money to go to those in need of help.
 
Tis_Bearself said:
Lots of people don’t like to give via the United Way. Years ago when I used to give - this was back in the days when offices would pretty much shame people who didn’t want to donate to it because teams were supposed to have 100 percent participation, I think they have backed off this now - I would designate particular charities to get my donation so it wouldn’t go to PP. I’d pick Catholic groups or domestic violence shelters.
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In my working days, when they made the United Way push every year, I would earmark my donations to causes I believed in, and that were morally unproblematic, such as the food bank, Habitat for Humanity, men’s shelters, and fatherhood rights advocacy. They really didn’t want you to earmark, but I did it anyway.

At one place of employment, there was an intense, and I do mean intense, pressure to donate to JDRF (Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation), where among the many good things they do, they also fund embryonic stem cell research — the murder of newly conceived embryos to extract stem cells. Not donating wasn’t an option. I considered resigning because of this. Finally, without fanfare, the JDRF push suddenly and quietly stopped. You never heard a word about it after that.

I have to suspect that someone, or a group of employees, with greater courage than I had at the time, confronted upper management and told them of their objections and why they objected.
 
I went through similar discernment years ago, because giving to United Way was and still is heavily pushed by my employer. I give to Catholic Charities via United Way when I have a choice where my donations go.

My employer encourages monthly “charity events” throughout the year, where extra money is gathered and sent to the United Way for whatever. The events are usually some big fun social thing. I’ve asked where the money ends up, but no one could or would answer the question. I won’t participate in these events because I don’t know where the dollars go, and I don’t trust the United Way. Makes me a bit into a stand-offish curmudgeon at work, but so be it.
 
The United Way is required to have representatives on local boards, one each from the Catholic, Protestant and Jewish congregations in town.

You might call your United Way, find out who the local Catholic representative is and speak with them.
 
My work does the United Way donations every year, and they are VERY aggressive in pushing everyone to donate something.

So I donate. However, the United Way allows you to pick the Charity you want your money to go to.

You can even write in a charity.

So I have all the money I donate via paycheck deductions go to Catholic Answers, my parish, and one or two other Catholic organizations.

I tell United Way to donate all my monies to Catholic organizations only.

So if you work is like mine, and is kind of aggressive in getting people to donate, you should be able earmark your entire United Way donation.

God Bless
 
Tis_Bearself said:
this was back in the days when offices would pretty much shame people who didn’t want to donate to it because teams were supposed to have 100 percent participation, I think they have backed off this now - I would designate particular charities to get my donation so it wouldn’t go to PP. I’d pick Catholic groups
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My company is still into using very public pressure to force people to donate and they make it very public who donates and who doesn’t.

So I earmark all of my donation to Catholic organizations, including Catholic Answers and my parish.
 
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I would neve give a dime to the United Way because of how they misused the money given to them during that big tsunami in Asia about 15 years ago. Not one thin dime ever again!
 
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Even though I work for a catholic university, I don’t like having them suggest to whom I should donate, so I do not participate, and I explain that reason any time I am asked. And I offer to show them my Annual Catholic Appeal pledge if they are so interested in knowing where I donate my money
 
United Way takes a bite out of the contributions. I think it’s about 14%. Not a lot by the typical standards but why not just give it directly to the Catholic charity? After all, isn’t the idea to get it to the people who need it, not to the people who handle it?

If they have a problem with you donating it directly to the charity rather than going through them, then they are being very disingenuous.
 
Can you trust them to do what they say and actually give the money to the place you earmarked? I wouldn’t.
 
I’m still not getting it. Why would you earmark it for a specific charity? Why not just skip all that nonsense and give it directly to the charity?
 
Because some people’s workplaces basically pressure them to contribute to United Way.

Now that I am in a workplace that doesn’t care and leaves you alone to donate to what you want, I don’t have to deal with it. So I don’t give to United Way.

I can remember one time like 25 years ago when a friend of mine decided he did not want to donate to United Way and his boss was hassling him about it. I think he finally agreed to contribute 1 dollar per paycheck or something just to get the boss off his back. Even then he got a fisheye but at least the group could report 100 percent participation to whoever was keeping track of this bulloney.
 
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Due diligence is required nowadays. At our parish, the “civilian boss” presents various parish-specific programs for us to support. One of these is the “Women’s Bean Project.” They reportedly help stabilize the lives of women in crisis or conflict. Sounds good, but it’s HQ is in Denver. Hmmmm.

Did a little checking. It seems that the CEO of the WBP is also chair of an intermediate organization that works directly with Planned Parenthood. That strikes me as an engineered degree of separation from the abortion industry, providing WBP with plausible deniability. Do I think for one second that WBP does not refer “crisis pregnancies” to Planned Parenthood for “resolution”?

No.

They do not get a penny.
 
Some companies do matching donations if the employee gives through the United Way payroll deduction. You can double your donation!
 
My company, happily, does matching donations for any legitimate charity as long as they have matching funds. I got them to double a donation I made directly to St. Vincent de Paul once.
 
My overall workplace does a massive, huge push every year for the United Way. There are roughly 80,000 employees. My particular ‘department’ has had about 10 years of zero participation, however. We have 12 employees.

We used to get to pick the charity. Back then, our little department had year after year of 100% participation.
And we never got an award for it. Year after year, we were overlooked in favor of the big departments that have thousands of employees. And we got a little salty about it.

Then they switched all donations to the United Way. And we thought we’d rather make our own charitable choices.

Then there were layoffs and furloughs and budget cuts, and right in the middle of the Great Recession, signs and promotions and banners and a kick-off party advertising how wonderfully generous the employees were. And that really didn’t sit well with us.

We haven’t even handed out the little brochures for years now. 🤣
 
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Years ago I was put in charge of the Combined Federal Campaign for the Air Force wing I was assigned to. It’s the government version of the United Way. The wing’s goal was increased nearly 20% over the previous year because flight pay had been bumped up and they expected to see a chunk of it. I had raised more than had ever been raised before, but couldn’t meet the new goal. I noticed the less someone was paid, the more they gave. I had one senior airman who contributed a third of her pay. I called her personally to make sure it wasn’t a mistake. She wanted to do it. But the higher ranking officers were cheap, only contributing $25-$50 annually. I was shocked. Knowing the amounts given by my superiors, I wasn’t upset we missed the goal.
 
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