Federal employees less charitable last year

Civil servants donated $236.9 million to charities in the fall 2002 Combined Federal Campaign, about 2 percent less than the $241.4 million pledged the year before, according to figures released Monday by the Office of Personnel Management.

Federal employee participation in the fundraiser also fell. About 35 percent of government workers donated money in 2002, down from 38 percent in 2001. World events, including the possibility of war against Iraq, might have distracted federal workers' attention from the 2002 fundraiser, accounting for some of the drop in participation rates and overall donations, said Mike Orenstein, a spokesman for OPM.

Despite a 6 percent decline in giving between 2001 and 2002 in the national capital area, civil servants in Washington region still donated $47 million, the most of any local campaign. Nearly half of D.C.-area government employees participated, pledging an average gift of $296. In 2001, the area raised $50 million.

Campaign management issues may have also accounted for the overall slip in giving, eroding employees' trust in the charity drive, Orenstein said. A new audit guide, released by OPM in late April, is designed to help restore trust in the campaign for the upcoming fall drive. The guide, developed jointly by OPM Director Kay Coles James and the agency's inspector general, seeks to strengthen program oversight and promote better financial controls for campaign managers.

"With the new audit guidelines, we feel we're in good shape to have a spectacular year [in 2003]," Orenstein said.

Formed in 1961 to pool informal solicitations into a single large-scale charity drive, the CFC is the only authorized fundraiser in the federal workplace. Civil servant volunteers work with nonprofit executives to generate and distribute campaign donations for each local chapter of the nationwide CFC.

The decline in capital area giving came amidst financial troubles at the United Way, the organization that has administered the 2002 area fundraiser for the past 25 years. In April, Global Impact, an Alexandria, Va.-based nonprofit group, won a bid to run the 2003 capital area charity drive.

Global Impact has administered the CFC Overseas campaign for seven years and increased revenue by 64 percent over that time. Overseas workers donated the second-largest sum to the CFC in 2002, contributing $11.3 million, a 2.4 percent increase over 2001.

For large local campaigns-classified as those raising more than $1 million-the Pikes Peak area in Colorado boasted the largest increase in giving. That campaign raised $1.7 million in 2002, an 18 percent increase over 2001. In the King County, Wash., area, CFC participants contributed an average of $343.42, the highest average gift for large local campaigns.

The Rio Grande Valley CFC in Texas saw the highest percentage increase in giving for mid-size campaigns, and participants in the Smokey Mountain Region CFC in Knoxville, Tenn., contributed the largest average gift in that category. For small campaigns raising under $250,000, the Henderson-Daviess CFC in Kentucky saw the greatest rise in contributions and the Mid-Columbia, Wash., area CFC boasted the largest average contribution.