Charitable campaign counts on generosity of public employees

Volunteers who conduct Dane County’s largest workplace charitable campaign are counting on co-workers to open their hearts and wallets this fall even as they pay significantly more toward their own health care and retirement benefits.

“This is a challenging year for many public employees,” says Tom Sinclair, marketing chair of the Partners in Giving campaign, which solicits donations from more than 40,000 state, university and UW Hospital and Clinics employees and retirees in Dane County.

“Some may find it more difficult to contribute, but many will give if they possibly can. These people have been incredibly generous in the past, even in very tough economic times.”

Contributions to Partners in Giving from more than 8,500 employees and retirees last year totaled almost $2.8 million. Since its debut in 1973, the annual campaign has raised a remarkable $59 million for charitable causes.

“If we have to make sacrifices, imagine all the other people out there who are making even greater sacrifices who don’t have anything, who haven’t been blessed with as much as we have,” says Brian Rust, a longtime campaign donor and volunteer.

“We wouldn’t ask [for contributions] if there weren’t people in tremendous need,” adds Rust, a communications specialist with UW–Madison’s Division of Information Technology.

Partners in Giving this year runs from Oct. 10 through Nov. 30. The campaign is raising money for more than 500 charitable organizations providing everything from employment assistance to environmental protection to disaster relief. Some of the organizations are strictly local, while others focus on state, national or international concerns. Many derive a significant portion of their annual revenue from the Partners in Giving campaign.

“A lot of the charities are ones that our patients interact with every day,” says Robert Scheuer, who works at UW Hospital and Clinics and is a Partners in Giving volunteer. “For things that we can’t provide them with at the hospital or assistance outside the clinical setting, these charities are their support. It’s their safety net.”

Lily Castonguay, a first-time campaign volunteer employed by the Wisconsin Department of Transportation, believes anyone who has ever turned to someone else for help has a responsibility to give back to others.

“I’ve been in the position where I haven’t had enough time or money to give back, but now I have a chance to turn that around,” says Castonguay. “Especially with the economy, this is a good time to give, even if it’s just a small amount of money. People don’t have to feel like a small contribution isn’t going to mean anything.”

Mark Blank, a veteran Partners in Giving volunteer with the Wisconsin Department of Employee Trust Funds, challenges employees who are undecided about whether to donate to “give a few dollars every couple of weeks and then ask yourself at the end of the year whether you really missed it.”

He bets they won’t.

Katharyn May, dean of the UW School of Nursing and volunteer chair of the university’s campaign coordinating committee, says enlisting new Partners in Giving contributors is more important than ever.

“The pride in place that I sense among residents of Dane County is merited, but we still have many families that are really struggling,” says May. “I would say to folks who haven’t donated to the campaign before, if you want to make a difference, now’s the time to make a difference and help us. We’re moving mountains here with this campaign, but it starts one donor at a time.”

Because volunteers do most of the work, overhead costs for Partners in Giving are only half those of comparable campaigns around the country. Ninety-seven percent of the money raised goes directly to the participating charitable groups.

For more information, visit the Partners in Giving website.