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Donations to annual charity campaign by federal employees are down 40 percent this year after Trump administration destroyed the federal workforce and launched the campaign late after considering scrapping the annual event.
Office of Personnel Management officials said last week that this year’s joint federal campaign for donations would be extended through January, but according to Washington Post, Charities that typically rely on an annual effort for fundraising are concerned that the extension will not be effective because OPM is not extending contracts for the workers who help run the project each year.
Until last weekend, Post It was found that the annual campaign has suffered a huge setback trump The administration’s efforts to cut the federal workforce — laying off nearly 300,000 people since taking office in January — and its side effects 43 day government shutdown Which ended last month.
Fundraising data showed that federal workers had donated only $23 million as of last weekend — a steep decline from the more than $40 million brought in by the same point by campaigns the previous three years.
The annual campaign for government employees brings in much-needed revenue for thousands of charities, including the Washington, D.C. area and the Mid-Atlantic region.
The Joint Federal Campaign has raised more than $9 billion for donations from federal employees since the 1960s.
Ann Hollingsworth, vice president of government affairs at the nonprofit coalition, said Post Organizers’ decisions not to extend contracts could make a big difference to how much money the campaign brings in, even with a four-week extension.
“If contractors are not allowed to do their work in the last four weeks of January, there is a question of how successful we can make the CFC campaign, as we have already been impacted by delays due to the shutdown and are dealing with other disruptions in the nonprofit community,” he said.
McLaurin Pinover, a spokesperson for OPM, said the agency is looking at establishing a more cost-effective way for federal employees to donate than the current CFC.
“We are not paying them additional funds for the extension period because we do not believe it is a good use of donor dollars,” he said.
Delay in starting OPM Annual campaign due to government shutdown and considered scrapping it altogether, but officials later decided to host it because the participating charities had already paid the fees required to participate.
Scott Kupor, the wealthy venture capitalist who serves as director of the agency, complained about the $22 million estimated cost of the annual campaign in a post on the OPM blog, where he said he was also “evaluating changes to the CFC for 2026 (including whether to continue the program).”