To refuse to support charity in work?

[emphetic]

I work for a big international company. It’s very keen on getting its name publicised for supporting charitable ventures.

It has partnered with a particular big name charity. This also means that the company cannot and will not allow staff to fundraise for other charitable causes. Any charity has to be for the benefit of this special partner charity.

There’s constant fund raising in work. £25 a strip raffle tickets. £5 a slice of cake for charity. Sponsored walk 100km in a month etc. There’s always pressure to donate.

AIBU to refuse to support the charity through work? In my personal view, there are far better charities to support and it’s better for money to be split up rather than hoarded by one big charity. Historically the charity have been quite shitty to people from my religion so I don’t want to support them when there are many alternatives.

I also take issue with “my money” being claimed by the firm as “firm donation”.

I'm not sure what position you think OP holds in this large company, but I'm going to guess that she's not at board level or top management.

What's the problem with that charity? Genuine question as i dont even know which one you're referring to.

I would decline. I have direct debits to my chosen charities and say no to most other requests - the exception being if someone is doing a low cost sponsored event for a charity relevant to a deceased relative or similar, or a few quid for my kids school fair.

One reason being I'm suspicious as to how much money actually reaches the charity and how much is quietly pocketed to cover "expenses" or simply stolen. I used to work somewhere with collection boxes in reception. They were always getting stolen, despite the area being staffed at all times.

A colleague recently did a collection for a leaving do and £500 was raised. £400 was spent on presents but £100 has been kept by said colleague "to cover his time".

You don't need to be board level to make a suggestion of this nature...

Think they were excessively religious?

@toadinthebucket There's a blog link here;

https://emilyjoypoetry.com/7-reasons-not-to-participate-in-operation-christmas-child-this-year

This might go down like a lead balloon, but the company I worked for was fanatical about its employees taking part in Children in Need/Comic Relief - possibly because of the high profile/photo opportunity in the media potential.

Perhaps I’m an old mizzog, but I hated the forced ‘zaniness and wacky’ roles we had to play for the day. Even more so that we were encouraged to waylay customers for donations who just wanted to come in and get their transactions done without staff dressed as teddy bears/red spikes hair virtually mugging them for contributions.

It got to the point where I was planning annual leave around the dates to avoid taking part in this forced performance that I personally didn’t support. It wasn’t something I could say to my bosses, “No thanks, I’m happy to work on the day but I’ll sit out the charity bit”

Quite agree about supporting local charities. The major ones are inevitably big business and CIN/RND were backed by well known celebs and have wall to wall Tv coverage so don’t need individuals being strong armed by their employers to contribute.

I started saying no years ago. Not specifically to charity collections, but people who never speak to me then asking me to 'chip in,' for a gift for someone I hardly know. I just say no, I do my own thing with work gifts now or (if I like them,) oh I've already got her a card and bottle of wine.
The same people who do the collecting are generally people who never take a turn buying the coffees or a round of drinks or whatever..
So if it was a charity I wasn't overly keen on, I'd say the same, something like, "oh I already give as much as I can to my own charities, I don't really give in work as regularly now!" An think no more about it!

I only support company charity fundraising when the company in question undertakes to match what is raised by its employees and customers.

It's very rare that this happens!

My response to this (which is true) is to tell whoever is asking for money that I donate directly to the local women's shelter and it's the only charity I support.

Yeah my Dh works for Tesco they do that too and he works in a ware house so he is not well paid.

Just say 'no'

Do you want to buy a strip of raffle tickets? 'no, I don't'
Do you want to buy a slice of cake? 'no, I don't'
Do you want to sponsor me for a walk? 'no, I don't'

Don't even make an excuse, just say no each and every time. Won't be long before others are doing the same!

To be fair.....if the slice of cake was worth it......I might just be tempted...... 😊

Thank you

I think it's quite common for large organisations to have a partner charity. I know that where DH works they are partnered with the local hospice, and a charity directly linked to the sector they operate in. I'm self-employed, but my last job had similar. It stops requests every week to HR for a bake sale for Cancer Research, everyone to wear jeans for Jeans for Genes, a dress-down Friday for Oxfam, a raffle for the donkey sanctuary etc etc. Everything for the same cause.

However, you are not being unreasonable in not wanting to support any particular charity, for whatever reason.

Don’t feel pressured. Not all charities are worth supporting.

If I were you, I'd take the initiative, I'd suggest you start to focus on local charities who would really massively feel the difference from your support and who will actually engage with your business on a personal level. I'd get a number of those local charities to present what they do and then let staff vote for who they want to support.

There's so much scope for what you can do that doesn't just involve funds, for example if you work with an employability charity you could offer work tours or work experience for vulnerable young people or interview tips and prep. You could also engage with them as to how your business can be more informed and offer a more accessible service

These are not just suggestions that your average employee in a large company can make. Everything you've suggested is at least at high management level.

OP can correct me if I'm wrong, but I imagine that if she was at a decision making or other influential level, she would already be addressing this issue, rather than simply posting here to ask about having to pay £5 for a slice of cake.

I agree with you. I give regularly to a number of charities that I've chosen. I don't want to be coerced into giving to a charity my employer has chosen.
I really don't like the way this fundraising is portrayed as "Widgets of Halifax Ltd has raised £3000 for us" when the money has come from employees. If Widgets Ltd want credit for donations they should give money out of company funds. Or the directors can cough up.

@FictionalCharacter exactly - Widgets of Halifax taking all the credit when they have done nothing more than pressure their staff to make them look good.

It feels like the assumption that of course you want to do whatever your employer wants you to, that you have no thoughts of your own or choices as the whether you support charity or not. It feels like further mission creep of your work making decisions for you that you did not agree to /are not in your work contract.

I say I have my own two charities I support and everything I can spare goes to them.

But I have no ethical issues with my workplace charity so I do participate in volunteer days during work hours. Gets me out of the office for a change of scene.

They are a right-wing fundamentalist "Christian" organisation with an evangelical brief - no present arrives unaccompanied by religious indoctrination.

£5 for a slice of cake We have various bake sales at work but it's butterfly buns for 50p type stuff. No one would pay £5.

This 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

So employees have to hand back some of their wages to make the company look good and get some PR and tax breaks?
No Ta!

I hate this. A company I used to work for did this too and I don't think they actually gave a shit about the charity they just wanted to look good on their website/press releases etc and put pressure on us to donate in order to do so. Your money your choice, they don't get to say how to spend it or pressure you, YANBU.