Shhhh...it's a secret

Well, not entirely a secret as a few people at work are in the know.  (No, I did not win the lottery and can retire early - I wish!).

I've talked about our charitable campaign which kicked off at the end of September and will wind-up on Thursday.  We set a goal of $35,000 and 35% participation, both of which were significantly lower than last year and the year prior.  However, we knew we'd had a number of larger donors retire so wanted to set a goal we thought we had a hope of achieving.

AND we did!  Or at least we`ve reached one of our targets - the dollars, but not the participation but we`re closing in on that.  As of 4 p.m. today, we were at $36,600 plus with a participation rate of 30.4%.   When we add in the funds from events held throughout the year, we've reached $40,000.  Hurray!!!

We may not make our participation goal, but then we never really have.  We used to set 50% as a goal and except for the year where we created pledge forms for small donations of $2 or more (normally would be $10 plus) we`ve never come close to that number.

In previous years we were able to build hype by having fun events, like frozen turkey bowling, a not-so-amazing race, mini-golf tournaments, and even a carnival.  This is no longer permitted. Fun at work....omg sacrilege!!!  So as our campaigns have become more passive, the participation and the donations have decreased.  You wouldn't think that fun and donations would tie together but they do.

We were really worried this year, as one of the union groups has been without a contract for two years, while the other started bargaining last week.  Add in the major changes and the negative impact these have had on morale and we really thought we`d see a further decline.

Since I'm a bean counter I was doing some analysis on the number earlier today.  Almost two-thirds of those who pledged this year are new donors or have increased their pledge from last year.  Only a handful decreased their pledge which is incredible.  The average donation increased by nearly 10%!

What made the difference?  Is it possible, that despite the low morale, the issues surrounding the contract negotiations (and potential strike), and the lack of fun, that people are realizing we are still more fortunate than most?  For the most part we have job security...as long as we do our jobs... and while our pay hasn't kept up recently with private sector wages we do have a good deal of flexibility (such as my up-coming leave).

I don't know though I do plan to ask for feedback. Perhaps I can identify that elusive factor that encourages people to give back so we can continue to grow our campaign and set loftier goals.  But regardless, the benefit of having reached our goal is the work that can be done by the various charities within our community.  Ultimately that is most important!