If you are looking for your donation forms and paper catalogues you won't find them.
They are part of "seismic changes" coming to the Combined Federal Campaign that started Monday, campaign and post leadership announced during a kickoff celebration Sept. 29 at the Fort Jackson Golf Course.
"This year has changed," said Maj. Gen. Pete Johnson, Fort Jackson commander. "We are going from paper to online. We are going from a caretaking system that went through intermediaries helping us out to a centralized system."
Volunteer time can also be donated during the campaign and military retirees, not working in the federal workforce will be allowed to donate for the first time.
The CFC campaign is the only time of the year where charities can solicit donations from the federal and military workforce. For 58 years federal and military workforces "have contributed $8.2 billion to charities worldwide," said Clyde Penn, an entrepreneur from Washington, D.C. and Aiken, South Carolina native, during the celebration. "Last year 400,000 military and federal employees contributed $167 million" to CFC.
Fort Jackson's CFC is being led by the Soldier Support Institute.
The changes were made to align the CFC with the best practices of the civilian sector, Penn said.
Centralization of the process includes an internet portal that streamlines the giving process by allowing a better choice of charities and the ability to better determine where donations will go.
The campaign used to run at 22 percent of the cost of giving or "for my dollar 20 cents has gone towards operations," Penn said. The campaign is looking to reduce that dramatically.
Another change in the program is allowing volunteer hours to be counted towards CFC goals. As one of the private sector's best practices used by many large corporations to track their corporate social responsibility, volunteerism will open another avenue for employees to give.
Volunteers can go through the new portal and can "say I want to give one hour a month to XYZ charity," or five hours a month to five separate organizations, Penn added.
He also explained that retirees have been able to donate in the past if they were federal employees, but now can donate as both.
Johnson called for Fort Jackson leaders to support the CFC because "it's in our DNA to serve others. At the start of this is about giving. Leaders I ask to help lead us through this."
CFC and the Army Emergency Relief campaigns are the "two times we are leaders in uniform can actively lead our formations in giving like this."
"You only have to look south to the hurricane zone to see that there are folks who have it much worse than all of us. I challenge you to lean in and make a difference to Fort Jackson, to our Army" and the nation, Johnson said.
For more information about donating contact your unit CFC representative.
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