‘Ottawa’ Phoenix Jitters Affects Federal United Way Campaign
The federal government hopes to close in on its $19 million goal for this year’s United Way workplace campaign despite employees’ jitters about using the fickle Phoenix payroll system for their campaign donations.
William Pentney, deputy minister at Justice and the campaign’s chair, said apprehensions about Phoenix reduced the number of employees using payroll deductions for their donations this year, but they didn’t put as much of a damper on the campaign as organizers had feared.
The federal workplace campaign is the biggest in the country, with 80 per cent of donations typically come from payroll deductions. This year, that slipped to 70 per cent. About $14.6 million has been raised so far.
“Seven out of 10 using payroll deduction is a bit of drop but I might have thought it would have been more dramatic than that,” said Pentney in an interview.