For Charities

With the uncertainty caused by the coronavirus, we’ve been planning how to get our guides to CFC donors this fall, as well as other ways we can reach these donors. 

Fortunately, most ways we distribute our guides won’t be greatly impacted by the virus, as we explain below.  We’ve also developed a new digital way to reach more than 60,000 CFC donors, even those working from home. 

The HOLIDAY/POST GUIDE is the easiest guide for us in relation to the virus. 

Now is the time to review your CFC description    

          As CFC charities are getting their 2020 campaign acceptances, now is the time to look closely at your CFC description. You can change your description when you pay the CFC’s “listing fee,” after you receive your acceptance. 

          In the past, you wanted to write as compelling a case as you could about your work and why it’s important…in 25 words. 

Even as the CFC raises less, data suggests that promotion still helps many charities in the CFC

          With CFC donations declining sharply this decade, especially the past two years, many charities are wondering if it still makes sense to invest in reaching out to CFC donors.

                Donations through the Combined Federal Campaign declined again in 2018, though not nearly as much as they did the previous year, when the CFC rolled out its massive overhaul of the federal government’s fund-raising drive. 

            This fall's CFC Campaign keeps moving forward, a big contrast to last year's Campaign, which started extremely late. 

            The list of eligible charities was issued August 2. Among other things, this allows the website consultants to start testing the online giving portal, which should take about a month. The materials for this fall's campaign were made available online this week.

With the federal charity drive declining since 2010, is it worth it to promote your charity’s work among potential CFC donors? 

Two similar charities have answered this question in different ways since 2010, one continuing and expanding its CFC-focused promotion, the second cutting back to the point where it now appears to do little CFC promotion. 

The two are Food For The Poor and World Vision. Both are large Christian charities with strong brands that work internationally. 

         There are times when you wish you hadn’t been right.  Unfortunately, those who predicted the negative impact of many of the federal charity drive’s changes could not have been more right. 

          Last fall -- the year these changes were finally implemented – saw the CFC experience by far its biggest decline ever, both in total dollars given and number of donors. 

The long-awaited national CFC giving website – in many ways the centerpiece of the huge changes being made this year in the federal charity drive -- opened Monday, Oct. 16,

                Several charities have told us that they are receiving significantly less of the donations pledged to them during the 2016 campaign.  One charity reported receiving just 57% of their pledged amount, far less than normal. Why is this? 

                Charities have never received all the CFC donations they are pledged, for two reasons.