As an employee of the government every year the GCWCC canvasses employees to set up payroll donations for the charities of their choice. The past few years those donations have been lower due to the Phoenix Pay system issues.
I have participated in this program for many years, but I suspect this year will be my last for a few reasons.
The primary reason is the overhead charged by the United Way to administer this program for the Government. The program has negotiated a lowering of the normal fees the United Way takes 26% or higher of money donated.
Currently the Government program claims to only be losing 15% (up to a maximum of $750 per year) to United Way management fees.
The 15% fee is not exactly what you think either. My Church did a bit of research and in fact, because I want to donate using a “payroll donation”, there is an “additional 5% adjustment due to “pledge loss”. This means 20% of the money I give will get scraped off for admin fees.
My Payroll Donations Plans for Next Year
I realize that charities have overhead costs, but this fee schedule is too much. To scrape over 20% from a donation, is a non-starter for me. Next year I will simply give directly and figure out a way to do pay roll donations in a more roundabout way (i.e. putting money in a separate account, and make donations quarterly to specific charities).
The business of charity always upsets me. I have learned enough about it that I keep wondering why does it cost so much to try to help people ?
I am not giving any monthly donations to one specific charity. I just give one lumpsum to disaster relief efforts, mainly in Canada.