CFC Info Center

More Combined Federal Campaign donors will be able to pledge online this year.

The Office of Personnel Management said Sept. 25 that 32 of the more than 300 campaigns this year will use Employee Express, the agency's electronic pledging system, up from seven campaigns last year. OPM said about $1.6 million of the $273.1 million pledged in 2007 was donated through Employee Express.

CFC officials say Employee Express and similar programs are easier, faster ways for employees to donate than the old system of paper-based pledge cards. Under this system, participants choose the charities they wish to donate to from an online catalog, select how much they want to give, and submit their donations electronically.

"It's exactly like shopping online," said Linda Siegle, chairwoman of the Local Federal Coordinating Council for the Chesapeake Bay Area CFC, which includes Baltimore. "And it's more efficient for stopping mistakes on pledge cards. You don't have math errors or have to read people's handwriting."

The online donation programs also prevent errors by immediately validating charity codes and refusing to accept incorrect ones, she said. And the electronic donations speed up the process by cutting down on data entry.

Online donations also mean campaign officials don't have to walk around their offices to physically pick up donor cards, said Anthony De Cristofaro, executive director of the National Capital Area CFC, which encompasses Washington and parts of Northern Virginia and Southern Maryland. That especially comes in handy for agencies such as the Patent and Trademark Office, where many employees work from their homes or remote offices in the Washington area.

And agencies save on printing costs when more participants go online, said Martin Baumgaertner, chairman of the Chicago CFC's Local Federal Coordinating Council. He expects 20 agencies in Chicago will use online donations this year, up from 16 agencies in 2007.

OPM's program is not the only option agencies have for online donations. Some agencies, such as the National Security Agency, have developed their own programs. And Siegle said other agencies, such as Aberdeen Proving Grounds and the Naval Academy, will use online donation software developed by a Minnesota company called CFC Nexus. The CFC Nexus Web site lists 18 campaigns with agencies that are using its program.

NSA has worked on its system for the last six years, and is starting to declassify its program and share it with other agencies, Siegle said. NSA has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Defense Logistics Agency in Richmond, Va., to provide its software, she said.

NSA is "a third of our campaign, so they've taken the headaches out," Siegle said.

As online donations become more popular, CFC will be able to more easily collect information on donation habits and figure out how to better market to employees, Siegle said.