Yeah, I love where I work — it’s a fantastic fit — but I agree, I don’t really understand donating to my current employer when I already work for them.
I make contributions to department things like a cash gift to our staff or the funds we need for the department to pay for food for events since state money can’t be used for that…. but I don’t necessarily do it happily since it’s ridiculous I am using my salary to make my job function lol smhhhh
I both can understand that and also yea you shouldn't be expected to do it (because of course the cash gift for staff is often necessary because they're paid so little). But these university wide emails for giving Tuesday? Naw homie.
In New Mexico, we did a statewide survey last year on basic needs of both students and employees. Something like 11% of faculty were what the US gov deems homeless
Wait, so they are asking you to donate the money they pay to you? Hmm, so returning money they pay you seems like my $7.25 an hour is really $6.25 an hour.
My employer has a program whereby workers can sign up for monthly ‘donations.’ Originally the draw was that those workers could wear jeans on Fridays; then they made it so everyone could wear jeans on Fridays, so now the only draw is you get to put a graphic in your email signature.
The fact that not only my employer, generally, hits me up for donations, but that units do! Using internal data! Is nuts.
One from the corporate governance center asking for support bc I attended a lecture, one from the writing center because some of my students used their services, just boggling…
I always used to send back a note explaining this and their lack of a living wage for adjuncts in their own prepaid envelope. And ask why there was no food drive for adjuncts alongside the one for students.
my (private) school asks me for money every year and they really think i’m joking when i say that “i prefer a uni-directional
flow of cash between me and my employer, especially considering my undercompensation.” i could not be more serious. i will never donate to my workplace. ever.
5 years ago, previous nonprofit employer laid me&others off after we organized a successful union drive. Earlier this year I asked HR to update my address on my retirement account, so I could roll it over. They used that to add me to their direct mail list & I got year end pitch in the mail today 🙄
Nah, it's ok to hate the United Way, too. They're not a particularly effective charity in terms of dollars raised vs dollars spent on actual charitable work (and not just raising more/benefits for board members/etc)
I was told that it helps raise the institution’s ranking in some sort of metric about percentage of employees who give back. That argument did not sway me.
One of the last pieces of mail I got in my undergrad on campus mailbox before graduation was a donation request. Guess they thought they should ask before the student loan payments started up haha.
I hate what the K-12 schools do - every 5 minutes there's a fundraising request where the *students* get incentivized to buy random stuff with money from their parents to *support* the school. Sets a horrible example.
Most universities enable you to direct your gifts to the things you want to support, and who knows better what needs help than someone who's seen the needs?
Drives me batty! We are unionized, working without a contract, and they ask us to donate to the institution. There are memorial/scholarship funds I donate to to honor someone’s memory, help support students, etc. But to the institution, which owes me backpay? Hard pass.
At a prior institution they compiled a list of us who hadn't donated and the associate dean sent us personalized requests starting with "I noticed you haven't yet donated..."
All kinds of inappropriate
A co-worker in charge of "collecting donations" sent out a department wide email naming those of us who hadn't given yet with a reminder that "the deadline is tomorrow!" complete with a smiley face. You best believe I hit "reply all" & burned it to the ground.
Also, it shows the company donated and not you so they get the tax write off and it's for some nat'l org. I just donate to my local food bank and local at risk youth org monthly. It's set on auto pay for both.
I understand and respect this position. But given that I have the means and motivation to donate to higher education, I know the directed dollars I give to UAlbany will do far more to improve the lives of our students and faculty than the same dollars would do for any of my alma maters.
My alma mater has an insane endowment. It's basically a highly-profitable health care org that also happens to own an R1 that's flush with military industrial research cash. I'm grateful they gave me as close as I was gonna get to a free ride, but they srsly do not need my $$.
I recently learned that people in (senior) leadership roles are expected to donate, as that's part of the non-profit ethos of showing you believe in the mission of the institution.
i asked the dean if he knew what the poverty level was in our region and how that broke down to an hourly “nine month so not full time!” paid position, and if qualifying for medicaid allowed us to opt out. he did that smile/heh heh to avoid conflict thing and avoided me for a while lmao
i also was no longer invested in keeping that job once i realized they had zero loyalty to anyone as i watched friend after coworker ask for parity and be told they didn’t have to stay. like.
i’m too old for this pretense! am i stupid?? are you people serious?? you want money from me, post-tax, to go to your link for some national org that i normally would NOT fund so that YOU can use it for PR AND a tax write off?????
I worked for a company who explicitly penalized me 40% of my annual bonus because I didn’t “contribute” at least 1% of my salary to one of the companies charities they supported. I wasn’t “exhibiting the right behaviour for a senior manager”.
At schools I've worked at Development folks have said that donors wanted to know that faculty was so bought in to the mission of the school that all of them donated. Even though I know it's not quite the right term, the word "feudalism" does spring to mind
Every time I get a donation call from my employer (I’m also an alum), I tell them I pay $750 a month for the loan I had to take out to attend, plus I’m overworked and underpaid, so NO.
this this this. i’ve donated thousands of dollars through my emotional
labor and uncompensated additional duties. they should be embarrassed to
even ask.
I would love to see proof that this is actually true, with hard data. Who are these mythical donors who ask about employee giving or even care about it?
I felt bad for the work study student who called to ask me to donate to the a fund to give raises to the grad students at a former university of mine ... when I was a grad student elsewhere, making less than the grad students I was being told so desperately needed raises (they did! not from me!)
Yes. I actually also had worked doing fundraising phone calls for my university so I also knew all the tricks they were using to try and keep me on the phone. It was one of the better paying campus jobs because it was so miserable.
I once had to “donate” grant money I could only receive directly to the university so that I could hire and pay grad students…when I tell you they won’t leave me alone……………
Comments
https://bsky.app/profile/nabilzaqout.bsky.social/post/3lblk7ja6us2p
Yeah, nope.
One from the corporate governance center asking for support bc I attended a lecture, one from the writing center because some of my students used their services, just boggling…
Your employer asks
For
Donations?
Via email?
flow of cash between me and my employer, especially considering my undercompensation.” i could not be more serious. i will never donate to my workplace. ever.
All kinds of inappropriate
Seems more like a university thing than a non-profit sector thing but maybe that’s changing.
labor and uncompensated additional duties. they should be embarrassed to
even ask.