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I was recently a rep for the office's annual charity drive. At the end of it our office (west coast) was compared to offices in other parts of the country. Wh

I was recently a rep for the office's annual charity drive. At the end of it our office (west coast) was compared to offices in other parts of the country. While we had lots of one-time donations, literally nobody signed up for "workplace giving", to have money regularly taken off their paychecks. It is about fear an uncertainty. When people are stretched thin they will still give money when they can. But when is key. They will give money out of their pockets when asked but will not commit to future giving because they are unsure of that future. Subscriptions are for people who are confident in their month-to-month financial position. If you want to sell to the normal people, those who live from paycheck to paycheck, then you need to stick to single payment schemes.

fallingknife 5y ago
Office charity drives are already bad enough in that they socially pressure employees to give money. I would be furious if the company I worked for asked me to start recurring donations out of my paycheck. Keep employer-employee relationships to strictly business. I can donate to charity on my own time.
- sandworm101 5y ago
  It was a little more than that. There was some employer matching of funds, up to a point. And having it come off your paycheck saves a step come tax time.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- TravHatesMe 5y ago
  My father mentioned that while working for banks, back in his day (~25 years ago), there were "guidelines" of how much you should donate to $bigNameCharity depending on your position. He was pretty much forced to donate $1500/year, a lot of money back then. Of course, way up the hierarchy, someone was friends with the charity's founders. And of course, these charities paid out huge salaries and expensed extravagant "business trips". Typical.
  - thechao 5y ago
    There's a lot of awful charities out there. I've used "https://www.charitynavigator.org https://www.charitynavigator.org" in the past to determine which charities are worth giving to, or not. However, I've personally interacted with three charities "on the ground" (in Hospital situations): Shriner's (burn unit in Galveston); McDonald's; and, St. Jude's. I 100% guarantee you that those charities are in the business of helping people (kids, in these cases), and doing so for the best-bang-for-their-buck they can. All three are non-religious (if that's important to you). I think a lot of the people who read HN are probably in a life situation where they can help. Please do so.
- ajsnigrutin 5y ago
  All charity done by big companies smells shitty to me... you're a multimillion $$$ company, and you want me to donate 20$ to feed the poor?
  - germinalphrase 5y ago
    I get it, but - anecdotally - I know someone whose son was dying of cancer and the McDonald’s foundation absolutely helped them a great deal.
  - gumby 5y ago
    For charity by companies I agree with your position. But when a company will match your donation (which is given in your name) why not? I also don't agree with those big name-things donations by HNWs. If you really want to give, why name the thing after yourself? And depending on the charity of billionaires is a sign of a broken system anyway.
- vgeek 5y ago
  I worked at a college and during the hiring process, they tried to coerce you to sign up to automatic payroll deductions for donations to the college itself. I believe it was an opt-in by default, and you had to explicitly opt out by filling out a paper form. I was kind of confused by the absurdity.
  - fallingknife 5y ago
    Woah! Opt-in is bad enough, but opt-out "give us back part of your check" should be outright illegal.
- ghaff 5y ago
  Many years ago I worked for a company where the CEO or maybe his wife were associated with the local United Way branch. We were asked to contribute our "fair share" to the United Way campaign. We got a day off or something like that but it was also made very clear that this was not actually optional. And, yeah, to the other point, while I have subscriptions to various things it's not something I really want to do when I have a choice given that such things tend to be out of sight/out of mind.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
PragmaticPulp 5y ago
I think the explanation is even simpler: People don't like adding yet another monthly expense unless it's truly necessary. Even for financially comfortable people, a one-off donation to a charity is easier to reason about than taking the same amount of money and dividing it into 24 bi-weekly payments. Then I'd have to remember where to get the end of year receipt for those payments when I do my taxes. I'd also burden myself with the decision of when to cancel the donations, which is something the charity probably makes as difficult as possible to increase their retention numbers. If I did decide to cancel, I'd have to invest potentially an hour or more to track down the information, maybe call someone, deal with their retention pitch over the phone, and then remember to check in a few weeks to confirm it actually ended. It's all a lot of hassle that I really just don't want or need. Far easier to just donate once at donation time and then file the receipt in my tax folder. I can always decide to donate again next year. I already have probably 20 or more monthly recurring payments from my mortgage to all of the insurance payments and internet, gas, water, electric, NetFlix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, all of the software services I use and so on. Running a business can easily add 10-30 more monthly bills. I really, really don't want to add anything else to that list if I can avoid it.
dwater 5y ago
This took a lot of my mental energy when I was a teacher. I didn't have any of my bills on autopay because I had to constantly manage when I would have enough money in my account to pay any given bill. Even now that I'm much more comfortable I only have about half of my bills set to autopay just in case, e.g., one bill comes due the day before my paycheck lands in my account.
- ssivark 5y ago
  Seems like it would be a fantastic feature for payment processors to provide scheduling! (and negotiating with subscription providers to operationalize that) I dunno how many Bay Area SWEs/PMs can even grok such a lived experience, for them to prioritize it as a feature request.
  - liber8 5y ago
    I've never seen a credit card that did not allow you to schedule your payments. If you auto-pay everything with credit cards, then by default you are scheduling your payments. Same with mortgages. For the few things that don't accept cards (rent/water/gas/electric?) you could schedule payments whenever you want through your bank, though you'd likely be paying in advance rather than in arrears.
    - brimble 5y ago
      I've never paid bills from the CC side, but from the provider side. I don't even know how I'd tell my CC to automatically pay some entity on a set schedule. It's all pulled by the service providers, separately, on whatever schedule they decide (or choose to let me configure). I know I can do it with account-to-account transfers (so, electronic checks) from my checking account, but had no idea that was a thing for credit cards. Where do you tell it to send the money? Do you have to get bank account info for the receiver? [EDIT] On reflection, I've even built subscription systems reliant on credit card payments, and didn't know you could do this.
      - deleted 5y ago
sanderjd 5y ago
Really great insight. I have absolutely seen this in my own approach to subscriptions. I cancel them when I work for startups and sign up for them when I work for big stable companies.
stronglikedan 5y ago
Even if I could, I wouldn't sign up for workplace giving, because I know it's just a ploy to get tax breaks for the company. I'd much rather donate directly, and get the max tax breaks for myself. Same with giving donations in the checkout line. Amazon Smile is the only one I use, because it doesn't cost me extra.
mbg721 5y ago
I'm not in any immediate danger of being overdrawn, and I still detest automatic billing in general. (I do it for one bill where there's a significant upcharge for not doing it and switching providers isn't easy.) If I'm spending or giving away my money, I want to sign a check or at least tap a button every time. It's insulting to me for a charity to say, "Here, giving what you want is a bother, let us just take care of it."
nly 5y ago
I see a lot of people at my place of work giving from their gross income via salary sacrifice simply because they've maxed out their pension allowance and would rather see a charity get it than pay the government another penny in tax. Once I reach that level of income I'd probably do the same, even if on a take-home basis I didn't feel "rich" due to high CoL. Right now though, my primary concern is having a big enough pot in retirement, so my tax advantaged contributions go to pension (401k equivalent)
asoneth 5y ago
I don't mind subscriptions as they're more valuable to the organizations I support than a similar dollar-value of one-time-gifts. Though I do get why people in precarious positions (e.g. low paid workers, founders, or many people in high cost-of-living areas) would prefer not to use them. But the only reason I can imagine routing charitable giving through work is to take advantage of company matching. At a past company that did 100% dollar-for-dollar matching (up to something like ten thousand dollars) I was happy to shift as many of my donations as possible through work to direct more of the company's giving towards my preferred charities. At my current company that does 0% matching there's no reason for me to involve work in my charitable giving.

fallingknife 5y ago

Office charity drives are already bad enough in that they socially pressure employees to give money. I would be furious if the company I worked for asked me to start recurring donations out of my paycheck. Keep employer-employee relationships to strictly business. I can donate to charity on my own time.

sandworm101 5y ago
It was a little more than that. There was some employer matching of funds, up to a point. And having it come off your paycheck saves a step come tax time.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
TravHatesMe 5y ago
My father mentioned that while working for banks, back in his day (~25 years ago), there were "guidelines" of how much you should donate to $bigNameCharity depending on your position. He was pretty much forced to donate $1500/year, a lot of money back then. Of course, way up the hierarchy, someone was friends with the charity's founders. And of course, these charities paid out huge salaries and expensed extravagant "business trips". Typical.
- thechao 5y ago
  There's a lot of awful charities out there. I've used "https://www.charitynavigator.org https://www.charitynavigator.org" in the past to determine which charities are worth giving to, or not. However, I've personally interacted with three charities "on the ground" (in Hospital situations): Shriner's (burn unit in Galveston); McDonald's; and, St. Jude's. I 100% guarantee you that those charities are in the business of helping people (kids, in these cases), and doing so for the best-bang-for-their-buck they can. All three are non-religious (if that's important to you). I think a lot of the people who read HN are probably in a life situation where they can help. Please do so.
ajsnigrutin 5y ago
All charity done by big companies smells shitty to me... you're a multimillion $$$ company, and you want me to donate 20$ to feed the poor?
- germinalphrase 5y ago
  I get it, but - anecdotally - I know someone whose son was dying of cancer and the McDonald’s foundation absolutely helped them a great deal.
- gumby 5y ago
  For charity by companies I agree with your position. But when a company will match your donation (which is given in your name) why not? I also don't agree with those big name-things donations by HNWs. If you really want to give, why name the thing after yourself? And depending on the charity of billionaires is a sign of a broken system anyway.
vgeek 5y ago
I worked at a college and during the hiring process, they tried to coerce you to sign up to automatic payroll deductions for donations to the college itself. I believe it was an opt-in by default, and you had to explicitly opt out by filling out a paper form. I was kind of confused by the absurdity.
- fallingknife 5y ago
  Woah! Opt-in is bad enough, but opt-out "give us back part of your check" should be outright illegal.
ghaff 5y ago
Many years ago I worked for a company where the CEO or maybe his wife were associated with the local United Way branch. We were asked to contribute our "fair share" to the United Way campaign. We got a day off or something like that but it was also made very clear that this was not actually optional. And, yeah, to the other point, while I have subscriptions to various things it's not something I really want to do when I have a choice given that such things tend to be out of sight/out of mind.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

PragmaticPulp 5y ago

I think the explanation is even simpler: People don't like adding yet another monthly expense unless it's truly necessary. Even for financially comfortable people, a one-off donation to a charity is easier to reason about than taking the same amount of money and dividing it into 24 bi-weekly payments. Then I'd have to remember where to get the end of year receipt for those payments when I do my taxes. I'd also burden myself with the decision of when to cancel the donations, which is something the charity probably makes as difficult as possible to increase their retention numbers. If I did decide to cancel, I'd have to invest potentially an hour or more to track down the information, maybe call someone, deal with their retention pitch over the phone, and then remember to check in a few weeks to confirm it actually ended. It's all a lot of hassle that I really just don't want or need. Far easier to just donate once at donation time and then file the receipt in my tax folder. I can always decide to donate again next year. I already have probably 20 or more monthly recurring payments from my mortgage to all of the insurance payments and internet, gas, water, electric, NetFlix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, all of the software services I use and so on. Running a business can easily add 10-30 more monthly bills. I really, really don't want to add anything else to that list if I can avoid it.

dwater 5y ago

This took a lot of my mental energy when I was a teacher. I didn't have any of my bills on autopay because I had to constantly manage when I would have enough money in my account to pay any given bill. Even now that I'm much more comfortable I only have about half of my bills set to autopay just in case, e.g., one bill comes due the day before my paycheck lands in my account.

ssivark 5y ago
Seems like it would be a fantastic feature for payment processors to provide scheduling! (and negotiating with subscription providers to operationalize that) I dunno how many Bay Area SWEs/PMs can even grok such a lived experience, for them to prioritize it as a feature request.
- liber8 5y ago
  I've never seen a credit card that did not allow you to schedule your payments. If you auto-pay everything with credit cards, then by default you are scheduling your payments. Same with mortgages. For the few things that don't accept cards (rent/water/gas/electric?) you could schedule payments whenever you want through your bank, though you'd likely be paying in advance rather than in arrears.
  - brimble 5y ago
    I've never paid bills from the CC side, but from the provider side. I don't even know how I'd tell my CC to automatically pay some entity on a set schedule. It's all pulled by the service providers, separately, on whatever schedule they decide (or choose to let me configure). I know I can do it with account-to-account transfers (so, electronic checks) from my checking account, but had no idea that was a thing for credit cards. Where do you tell it to send the money? Do you have to get bank account info for the receiver? [EDIT] On reflection, I've even built subscription systems reliant on credit card payments, and didn't know you could do this.
    - deleted 5y ago

sanderjd 5y ago

Really great insight. I have absolutely seen this in my own approach to subscriptions. I cancel them when I work for startups and sign up for them when I work for big stable companies.

stronglikedan 5y ago

Even if I could, I wouldn't sign up for workplace giving, because I know it's just a ploy to get tax breaks for the company. I'd much rather donate directly, and get the max tax breaks for myself. Same with giving donations in the checkout line. Amazon Smile is the only one I use, because it doesn't cost me extra.

mbg721 5y ago

I'm not in any immediate danger of being overdrawn, and I still detest automatic billing in general. (I do it for one bill where there's a significant upcharge for not doing it and switching providers isn't easy.) If I'm spending or giving away my money, I want to sign a check or at least tap a button every time. It's insulting to me for a charity to say, "Here, giving what you want is a bother, let us just take care of it."

nly 5y ago

I see a lot of people at my place of work giving from their gross income via salary sacrifice simply because they've maxed out their pension allowance and would rather see a charity get it than pay the government another penny in tax. Once I reach that level of income I'd probably do the same, even if on a take-home basis I didn't feel "rich" due to high CoL. Right now though, my primary concern is having a big enough pot in retirement, so my tax advantaged contributions go to pension (401k equivalent)

asoneth 5y ago

I don't mind subscriptions as they're more valuable to the organizations I support than a similar dollar-value of one-time-gifts. Though I do get why people in precarious positions (e.g. low paid workers, founders, or many people in high cost-of-living areas) would prefer not to use them. But the only reason I can imagine routing charitable giving through work is to take advantage of company matching. At a past company that did 100% dollar-for-dollar matching (up to something like ten thousand dollars) I was happy to shift as many of my donations as possible through work to direct more of the company's giving towards my preferred charities. At my current company that does 0% matching there's no reason for me to involve work in my charitable giving.