Today, Nonprofit Quarterly published my article on the decline of the CFC. Much of the article’s information and opinions will be familiar to readers of this blog. However, the article adds historical perspective about the CFC and workplace giving in general to data published in WGA’s annual Million Donors Choose reports. It also considers how some private-sector workplace giving initiatives are thriving today even as public sector campaigns decline, and it suggests lessons the CFC might learn from those corporate successes.

​We now know that total pledges in the 2017 CFC were $101 million, down nearly 40 percent from 2016. This was reported Friday in the Chronicle of Philanthropy.

​For the first time in 55 years, one can question whether the CFC will survive.

Today the Chronicle of Philanthropy published an op ed by our CEO, Marshall Strauss, about the steep decline of the CFC, how government blunders have contributed to its demise, and what might be done to save it. If you subscribe to the Chronicle, you can read the full article: https://www.philanthropy.com/article/Opinion-Federal-Charity/242184. Meanwhile, here are the main points.

​The three charities in the top 100 that saw the sharpest decline in donations during the 2016 CFC had one thing in common: Their names included the term “Wounded Warrior.”

​Our analysis of pledge results from the 2016 Combined Federal Campaign suggests that many federal donors voted last fall with their campaign pledges – against Donald Trump. Both the Washington Post and Chronicle of Philanthropy reported this finding.