Donating to an NGO can sometimes be an act of faith: will the money really reach the people who need it? For United Way, the traceability of every cent we raise is an absolute priority. In fact, we’ve created a formula that ensures the transparency of our donation system and, in addition, multiplies its value. It’s called Nómina Solidaria (Payroll Giving) and it’s available to any altruistic person lucky enough to have a job.
War, energy crisis, inflation, exclusion… there are more and more causes on which NGOs base their appeals for help to the public. It’s inevitable to wonder about the actual destination of donations.
At Fundación United Way España, among other ways of raising funds, we apply the Nómina Solidaria formula, through which hundreds of people already give up a small part of their salary to our solidarity effort. This system has been in our organization’s DNA since its birth in 1887, when five members of a small community in Colorado, in the United States, agreed to open a common fund to help people without resources in their own neighborhood. Having such close proof of the good use of those donations meant the formula kept spreading community by community, until it became the coordinated network that today reaches the whole planet more than a hundred years later.
Deep into the 21st century, with companies now part of the corporate social conscience wheel, they are already a fundamental asset in our solidarity chain, especially because of their steadiness. Fixed income is vital for any non-profit organization for the obvious reason that it allows us to plan medium and long term, thus ensuring a lasting effect on everything we drive.
Obviously, when we say companies, we mean people, because it’s each of them, individually, who deducts a portion of their salary to contribute to our fund. That’s how Nómina Solidaria works at companies like the pharmaceutical company Lilly, Costco or Andbank, where, as a rule, for every euro an employee gives, the company matches it.
And that’s it? No. The strength of Nómina Solidaria as an ESG strategy goes much further. United Way, in addition to reporting on the use made of that money, gives companies the chance to actively participate in the social projects funded by the fundraising, in any of its three areas (health, education and employability) and in its two modalities (one-off actions and global programs). And that’s where the multiplier effect begins.
“I can’t believe this happens just a few kilometers from my house,” a Lilly executive recently said, after visiting, together with his staff, the Mensajeros de la Paz soup kitchen in Villaverde (Madrid), where United Way España used the payroll giving funds and was able to serve more than 400 people. That social awareness on the part of the company’s management is the first stone in building a bridge toward change that, step by step, opens the way to many other things.
It gives people living under the threat of exclusion a window into the working world. It provides a change of mindset for those who come to understand their reality, breaking down stereotypes that too often hinder empathy. It provides an incentive to those who take pride in working at a socially committed company. It gives the company an increasingly indispensable seal within the productive system, where the laws of economic profit are increasingly giving way to social justice as a form of gain.
Nómina Solidaria is a way of generating relationships, of adding value, putting staff in new situations that make them experience, grow, develop and establish a different bond with their job. And it can lead, if the company decides so, to a message to communicate to the outside world, spreading its solidarity work in the media and on social networks. Nómina Solidaria is, in the end, a way of making a company shine through its civic commitment and its effort to make donation something truly effective.
As proof of the effectiveness of the Nómina Solidaria formula, contributions have more than doubled in the last year. We’ll never tire of pointing out the beneficial effect our projects have on those who lend their help, not only because of the tax deductions—both for the company and for each individual donor—but also because of the positive energy that, time and again, they assure us it brings to their lives.
For United Way it’s also a source of advantages, an exercise in transparency that endorses the work we’ve been doing in Spain since 2016, and a way for our approach to be understood—one that doesn’t consist of a mere transfer of funds but of detailed work of design, of connecting agents with real power to create change, of monitoring the processes we set in motion, and of communicating their results. After more than 5 years in Spain, we’ve already woven networks with many Third Sector entities, to whom we are not competition but a unifying force.
The autumn of 2022 and the winter of 2023 will be the setting for a very tough test for the whole of society. For those who will personally suffer the long-announced consequences of the energy crisis and inflation. For the administrations that, in a mature society, cannot afford to leave anyone behind. And for those who have a more obvious opportunity than ever to act from their position of stable privilege.
We will never tire of THANKING the companies—and their teams—who trust United Way to make their surrounding environment a place to be proud of.
Request information here about Nómina Solidaria if you want to launch it at your company.