History of the Combined Federal Campaign

A brief history of the Combined Federal Campaign (CFC) will demonstrate why it is one of the largest, most successful, and convenient workplace giving programs in the United States. Programs offer a myriad of choices for giving and it is convenient for federal employees to participate. The CFC allows participants to chose to give to organizations at the local, national, and international level. No other workplace giving program offers this type of variety of choice and convenience for charitable agencies.

Prior to the 1950's workplace giving campaigns in the federal government were an uncontrollable free for all which not surprisingly produced poor results. At times supervisors applied pressure to employees to give and quota's were wrongly established. Employees were asked to give throughout the year and there was no established order in how things were conducted.

In the 1950's President Eisenhower took steps to correct the prevailing situation. Various campaigns were assigned to particular times of the year. Local United Way Campaigns were conducted in the Fall and National Health Agencies and International Service Groups were assigned to the Spring. The American Red Cross drive was done in Spring if it was not part of the local campaign in Fall. Although this was an improvement there was still more work to accomplish.

President Kennedy came up with the concept of a combined giving campaign and in 1964 this idea was introduced with experiments around the United States. This program proved to be very successful along with the innovation of payroll deductions. Under President Nixon in 1971 the modern day CFC was born.

The CFC has over 1600 national and international agencies where employees can designate their contributions. In addition hundreds of local organizations exist allowing employee to contribute to the charities in their own home town. The payroll deduction systems make it easy for agencies after applying to receive quarterly checks. The CFC has proven to be very successful growing tremendously each year. The concept of a combined campaign with payroll deductions laid the foundation for one of the most successful workplace giving programs in history.