United Way Charitable Giving

This year I’m begrudgingly accepting the coordinator position for my company’s United Way campaign, and this morning was the rally. So this means I’ll be leading a giving campaign for 200+ people. The giving levels are pretty good, actually. As an incentive, they give you a free vacation day if you give at one of two levels:

The Love-Share Level – Give .7% of you income. For me this would be about $20 bucks deducted from each paycheck, or $40 a month. I think this might be a little out of my reach, right now.

The Goal-Share Level – Give 12% more than you gave last year, and also at least .5% of your income. Which for me, would be $12 out of my paycheck or $24 bucks a month.

This is certainly more doable. But I like the flexibility to give to other things throughout the year – my coworkers cancer research walk, the Alzheimer’s fund around Christmas in memory of my grandmother. More money to the Obama campaign in the next month, for sure. I don’t like having to say no to giving down the road. So I decided I would give $8 per paycheck, or $16 a month, for a total of around $200. And in the end, this is actually double what I gave last year, so I still feel good about increasing my giving levels as my income grows.