Federal employees in the Washington area pledged $61.6 million to charities through the Combined Federal Campaign in 2012 — about 99.4 percent of the $62 million goal set for the National Capital Area CFC, said Global Impact, which ran the charity drive.
This year’s results of the CFC’s largest campaign reflect some of the broader troubles and plummeting pledges plaguing the government’s charity drive nationwide, which we wrote about in January. The CFC NCA’s 2012 results mark the second year in a row that its pledge totals fell, and failed to meet the goals it set. While CFC NCA came close to its 2012 goal, it was further short of the $64.5 million it raised in 2011. And 2011’s final results were themselves far behind that year’s $67.2 million goal.
The CFC NCA hit a $67 million high in 2010, which was also the year overall CFC pledges began declining. CFC officials say that the ongoing pay freeze, furlough threats and other dismal news facing feds is likely to blame for the falling pledge totals.
When Federal Times last checked in on the CFC’s 2012 totals in mid-January, the CFC NCA had raised $60.4 million. Its campaign officially ended Dec. 31, but Global Impact marketing and communications director Joseph Mettimano said the last $1.2 million pledges continued to trickle in through January. The final contributions were processed Feb. 15 and officially announced March 14.
3 Comments
I have not reduced my contributions to charity. Since 2005 I dropped out of CFC and made donations directly to the charity, ensuring no reduction for CFC admin costs.
Why does CFC even exist today? Given the bloated overhead, it’s time to put this money robbing albatross out to pasture once and for all.
I kept my contribution level for the last year but had to decrease it by over half this year. With pay now frozen for three years going, increased health care and living costs every year, and having to go back to the the regular SS withdrawl effectively creating another 2% pay cut something’s got to give. What do they honestly expect? We all have to “cut across the board” of our own budgets as well.