Below is our plan for promoting charities in the 2025 Combined Federal Campaign. It reflects a lot of thought about how best to reach CFC donors given what is happening in the CFC and the federal government. Here is this year's contract with all our options. The sign up deadlines to be part of our various options start Friday, Oct. 9 (to be part of our NARFE Magazine ad). Other options have other deadlines, as long as space is available.
- We will target a new group of CFC donors: retired federal and military employees. This is the CFC’s one growth area, as our recent analysis of the 2024 CFC campaign explained. Retired employees can have donations deducted from their federal retirement payments, mimicking payroll deduction. More and more retirees are doing this, and their average pledge is extremely high: $1,331. Retired employees are also immune from the changes happening within the government.
- We will focus mostly on the new Mid-Atlantic CFC, which now accounts for nearly half (49.4%) of all CFC donations. The average gift in this region (DC, MD and Northern VA) is $1,248, by far the highest. To save money and lower your cost, we will no longer produce our National Guide.
- We will still reach CFC donors across the country in two ways: through our full-page ad on the inside cover of Military Family magazine (450,000) and a new, full-page ad in NARFE Magazine, which goes to 125,000 members of the National Association of Retired Federal Employees across the country.
- We will start mailing our DC-area CFC Guide to retired employees in the Mid-Atlantic campaign. Mailing is extremely expensive, but it’s a great way to reach CFC donors, especially retired people, many of whom tell us they appreciate a printed guide like ours.
- With many more federal employees now required to return to their offices, we will expand our hand-to-hand distribution near federal buildings. While many have been laid off, there are still hundreds of thousands of people who work for the federal government in the mid-Atlantic area. At the beginning of the year, this area had 373,000 people who work for the federal government.
- Our Guides and display ads will emphasize two points: The value of making an ongoing pledge to charities, by having a little deducted from each paycheck OR by making a monthly pledge on each charity’s online donation page. The value of the new charitable deduction for non-itemizers, which starts Jan. 1, 2026, which is also when a CFC pledge begins. The average CFC pledge ($995 nationally) is the same amount as the maximum deduction for an individual ($1,000). Joint filers can deduct up to $2,000.
In summary, this year we will produce:
- Two CFC Charity Guides (DC Guide and Holiday Guide),
- Military Insert in Military Family Magazine,
- Display Ad in the Post on Giving Tuesday (Why Support Your Work? format)
- Display Ad in NARFE Magazine (Why Support format).
Here is this year's contract. For more information, contact [email protected].