The Office of Personnel Management continues to take steps to shut down the federal government’s charity drive, evidently hoping that what it’s doing won’t be noticed with so much else in the news.
Last fall, OPM said that the application process for the 2026 CFC -- a process that normally begins in December – was being postponed as OPM evaluated the campaign and considered whether it should be continued.
The results of this evaluation – which didn’t include CFC charities that both benefit from and pay for the campaign – have not been released. Instead, late on Friday, Feb. 20, OPM’s Director Scott Kupor sent an email to CFC charities announcing that the CFC charity website will soon be “decommissioned.” The email prohibited charities from “disseminating, distributing or copying” it.
Since then, OPM has said nothing about this year’s CFC or why it has decided to end a campaign that raises tens of millions of dollars in private support for thousands of charities.
What OPM has done is accept the resignations or reassigned the small OPM staff that managed the CFC.
In response, the Save the CFC Coalition is urging charities to sign a letter it is sending to OPM’s Director. An earlier sign-on letter last September included nearly 400 charities.
The letter cites the long bipartisan support for the CFC (Presidents Kennedy, Nixon and Reagan all helped shape the modern CFC) and notes how much money it has raised for charities (more than $9 billion). It pledges to work with OPM to improve the annual campaign.
The deadline for charities to sign the letter is Monday, April 10.