Role of the Federation

Federations are the liaison between a group of charities and various employer groups and offer benefits to both groups of stakeholders. A key role of federations is to evaluate member charities annually to ensure to both companies and donors they meet high standards of performance and financial integrity.

Federations are focused on three primary goals:

1. Supporting employers in their quest to make the workplace-giving campaign more efficient, cost effective and responsive to the employees’ charitable interests.
2. Ensuring that donors in the workplace are presented with charitable giving options that meet the highest standards of efficiency, ethics and public accountability.
3. Raising more money for member charities, enabling them to provide critical services.

Benefits to the Donor

• Donors are assured that the charities represented by federations are credible organizations and meet the highest standards of performance.
• Efficiency of the federation ensures the maximum amount of the donor’s gift goes to the charity to provide services.
• The cost of raising donations through payroll deduction is less than with any other solicitation method, including direct mail and telephone calls.
• Donors are often educated about charities they would otherwise not know about.
• Federations facilitate the acknowledgement of gifts to the donor.

Benefits to Individual Charities

• Charities voluntarily participate in federations and recognize them as the most efficient means of participating in workplace giving campaigns.
• Federations allow charities to focus on its core mission of providing services. Charities often view the staff of federations as an extension of their own fundraising departments.
• Federations simplify and reduce processing costs to the individual charities.
• Federations coordinate workplace-giving events and offer opportunities for the charities to interact with the workplace donor.
• By outsourcing this fundraising component and joining together with other charities, members of federations achieve an economy of scale in their workplace giving efforts that benefits the charities, the employers and the donors.

Benefits to the Employer

• Federations represent only credible charities, with similar focus and purpose, which are reviewed annually to ensure high standards of performance and financial integrity.
• Using federations is efficient for the employer. The employer is provided with a single point of contact representing a broad number of charities.
• Federations have staff and field directors who can coordinate their members for events, agency fairs, training and other campaign events.
• Federations reduce the number of calls to an employer seeking access to the workplace campaign while responding to the employee’s desire for greater choice in the campaign.
• Federations offer resources to make the campaign more effective including a national network of experienced and trained staff, access to best practices, training for campaign volunteers and a link to volunteer opportunities.