We'll fund vaccines and throw in the social stereotypes for free!

[mrissa]

Gmail is not letting me log in; this is annoying, but it says they're trying to fix it.

You know what else is annoying? United Way's print ad campaign. Again, or still. They've got pictures of people saying that they did certain things -- "I pulled 33,000 kittens from burning buildings!" -- and then it says it was through the magic of donating money to United Way. Except it's not 33,000 kittens. It's stuff like -- well, here are the examples I remember:

A bearded, long-haired guy in a leather jacket: helped preschoolers with their social skills
Two middle-aged women: built houses for the poor
(the latest one to spark my wrath) A Hispanic guy with a goatee: helped a bunch of kids get their teeth straightened out

Because everybody knows that those longhair freaky types shouldn't be allowed near children, and girls can't build houses, and Hispanics can't be dentists! Thanks, United Way, for allowing us to pay someone to have humanitarian skills we would lack if we were walking stereotypes!

As I was sitting at a stoplight boggling at a bus that had the one with the Hispanic teeth-straightener on its side, I saw that it had a set of wrenches in the background. So I think the idea was supposed to be, "Mechanics aren't dentists." But it came out, "Them Mexicans ain't dentists, but they'll fix your car up real good!" Oh yah. Much better.

I would like to send -- oh, let's say, all the women from my folks' church's Habitat for Humanity housebuilding team, plus all the Hispanic dentists and orthodontists in the suburb we lived in when we were in California -- after the idiots who came up with this campaign. The leather-jacketed shaggy people, being generally amiable, even-tempered types, can babysit for the housebuilders' and dentists'/orthodontists' kids while they go kick ad agency butt. "United Way: we will play on cheap stereotypes, so give us your money." Great. Thanks. Just what I wanted.

Comments

[ellameena.livejournal.com]

I really have a problem with paying as a substitute for service, myself. Giving to charity is good and important, but working with your own two hands is also important. It doesn't matter what you do, you just need to do. That is one thing we are going to try to do better with the cub scouts next year. They were pretty short on service projects this year. All they did was toys for tots. Well, excuse me, suburban soccer moms and dads, but asking your parents to swipe a piece of plastic for a new toy you can drop into a barrel is NOT service. As for the United Way, they do give a lot of money to the charities they support, but they also have a large bureaucracy, and I am not a fan of all of their causes.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I remember my mom being just livid in the '80s: teen pregnancy was on the rise, so United Way cut the funding to the Girl Scouts. We never did get that one: it wasn't that teen pregnancy was on the rise among Girl Scouts! And what about the Boy Scouts, or was parthogenesis involved somehow? Damn those teen parthogenesists!

[ellameena.livejournal.com]

Well, they give nothing to the boy scouts anymore. I think their only virtue is that they get money from people who don't normally give to charity. But for those who give regularly, there are much better choices.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I'm not comfortable with how they get the money from people who don't normally give to charity. I've seen too many people pinched in high-pressure office situations, where their jobs weren't quite on the line, and yet...being a good team player...ew.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

I never really get past the part where they take money off the top for adminstration purposes to listening to what they actually say. (Which is exactly why I've been that hold-out in the office who keeps the "100% donating" thermometer poster from being red all the way to the top.)

[ellameena.livejournal.com]

Yes, that's true.

[scottjames.livejournal.com]

Yes. That.

[arielstarshadow.livejournal.com]

I work for my local United Way, so I'll offer some thoughts.

First - each and every United Way is autonomous. Each one develops its own campaign materials and message. So, what you see isn't what someone in Reno sees, which isn't what someone here in Colorado Springs sees.

Second - I suspect they weren't playing to stereotypes at all. I suspect that what they were trying to convey (albeit perhaps poorly) was the sense that everyone, no matter how much or how little they have to give, can help. It's pretty amazing these days what nonprofit agencies can do with the money they receive. Someone who can give $24 a year is just as important as someone who can give $2400 a year or $24000 a year.

Third - I can't speak for your United Way, but ours also encourages direct volunteering. We have a person who works directly with volunteers, helping to match them with opportunities that fit their skillset and their interests. We ourselves use a great many volunteers, and we couldn't accomplish half the things we do in a year without them. Our philosophy is that it's a combination of the two - giving money and giving time - that truly make a difference.

Fourth - again, I can't speak for your United Way's fund allocation process. I can tell you that ours is done....by community volunteers. Yep, that's right. Those of us on the staff here don't decide where the money goes. People in the community do. So, if an agency loses funding, it's because the volunteers (who read over the RFPs and actually go OUT TO THE AGENCIES to see a presentation and see the programs that will receive funding( felt that 1) the program wasn't important enough to the community to receive funding or, most often 2) there isn't enough funding to go around and that program just wasn't high enough in the voting to get funds. If you'd like a longer description of our fund allocation process, I'm happy to post it separately.

Fifth - Most nonprofits take "money off the top" for administration purposes. The national UW standards are pretty strict when it comes to this, meaning that your local UW will most likely take a lot less off the top than just about any other agency. That said, again please remember that every UW is autonomous. As it happens, the UW I work for doesn't take any administrative costs out of donations. So, in our case, 100% of what we receive from you goes right back out to the local community.

[sethb.livejournal.com]

I gave up on United Way when I found (and got them to admit) that they use bogus allocation accounting. They allow you to specify that your contribution will go to a particular charity. They then reduce the amount of not-specifically-allocated funds going to that charity by the same amount. So unless the total targeted donations for a charity exceed their proposed allocation, targeting does nothing except allowing the person giving to think he caused more to go to that charity (reduced, in most cases, by an overhead charge taken by United Way).

It's better to give to United Way than to anybody who phones you on behalf of a charity (even assuming that the charity they're calling for is legitimate); the callers take up to 80%, sometimes more. But it's even better just to give directly to the charity.

[arielstarshadow.livejournal.com]

Once again, please remember that every United Way is different. Your statement:

They then reduce the amount of not-specifically-allocated funds going to that charity by the same amount.

is patently untrue for the UW at which I work. What you're talking about here is the difference between a general fund (for all monies that come in which are not designated) and designations (monies which come in with a specific agency attached). Those who handle the allocation of the general fund (and it's not staff members, it's community volunteers) have no knowledge of how much money an agency is receiving in designations. It doesn't figure into their calculations whatsoever.

Again, I urge people to not assume that the practices and procedures of one UW are the same as another - because they most assuredly aren't.

[mamapduck.livejournal.com]

The problem is that they're damned if they do and damned if they don't. If the housebuilders are men, people will want to know why the UW is implying that only men build houses.

Stereotyping is as much in the inference as it is in the implication, and whichever way they lean, someone is going to take it badly.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I think what you mean is that you suspect they didn't mean to be playing to stereotypes at all. Because, in fact, they were. They were relying upon the viewer's reaction to their image and text to be one of surprise or incongruity. The images were clearly non-random with the text.

I'm glad you like your job and believe in the work you do, but that doesn't mean that United Way as an organization or individual United Way branches haven't made some bad choices in the past. You can believe in the work you do without defending various tactics that other groups have used, such as placing large amounts of pressure on people in their places of employment and, yes, use of stereotypes in ads.

[tanaise.livejournal.com]

I HATE that my company basically dictates giving money to them. I have thus far resisted giving money directly to them, though the book sales have gotten some of my money.

My brother showed me this once: http://www.charitynavigator.org/ which rates charities based on a lot of things. This, for example, is where a couple of my friends work: http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm/bay/search.summary/orgid/4884.htm SoThe ratings are carefully explained on the site, and are largely about how much money they spend on things other than their projects. My favorite rating is the Fundraising Efficiency: "We calculate a charity's fundraising efficiency by determining how much it spends to generate $1 in charitable contributions." It also has a number top ten lists, and lets you search by location or type of charity or such. So it's a very good tool for making sure the money you're giving charities goes to the right places. (and actually, looking at the rating of the Boston Area United Way, I'm thinking strongly of asking my company to consider instead picking highly rated charities in the area and donating directly to them.)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

The one my grandfather dealt with was worse than that: even if targeted funds exceeded their allocated amount, not one dime more would go to that group. So -- say they were supporting the Boy Scouts with $1000. Say they got $5000 total, all targeted to Boy Scouts. The Boy Scouts would still get $1000.

I'm glad to hear that arielstarshadow's UW doesn't do it this way, but some of them do.

[timprov.livejournal.com]

Except that they didn't have to do the "look at me, how special I am" campaign at all. They could, for instance, show pictures of the houses.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Then maybe they could come up with a different ad campaign.

Seriously, if it was men, they wouldn't get the response they wanted from the ad, because the ads are very clearly designed to make people say, "How could such a person do such a thing? Ah! Through giving money to United Way!" So if you showed a muscular young man in beat-up work clothes with the caption, "I built 47 houses for the poor," smaller text off to the side: "by giving to United Way," you don't get the presumption of incongruity. There's not really much reason to read the side text at all.

I suspect this is why they're not showing groups of office workers in a cubicle/office setting with captions of "WE did such-and-such": because they think it's less of an attention-grabber. They're probably right. I just reserve the right to dislike how they think people's attention will be grabbed and what they reinforce along the way.

[mamapduck.livejournal.com]

They could, but people respond better to pictures of people than pictures of things. A picture of a house gets you less bang for your advertising buck.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

That's a very useful site, thanks!

[sethb.livejournal.com]

I understand that those who "handle the allocation of the general fund" don't know the designated amounts. My question would be about what happens in between that allocation and the actual writing of the checks. Have you, personally, tracked that?

[sethb.livejournal.com]

I'd consider the one your grandfather dealt with to be committing fraud.

[tanaise.livejournal.com]

My mother supports United Way in our home town simply because it is the easiest way to get money to the various smaller groups that need money--it's the middle of nowhere, even something like the Charity Navigator wouldn't cover the groups out there, and my mother doesn't have time to do the proper research herself. but in a big city, United Way seems largely to be an inefficient way to give money.

[arielstarshadow.livejournal.com]

Yes, we certainly do. :) What you're talking about would, quite literally, be illegal for us to do.

[arielstarshadow.livejournal.com]

but that doesn't mean that United Way as an organization or individual United Way branches haven't made some bad choices in the past. You can believe in the work you do without defending various tactics that other groups have used, such as placing large amounts of pressure on people in their places of employment and, yes, use of stereotypes in ads.

Of course - my point is to please not disparage all UWs because of the actions of the few that engage in less than good practices. We aren't all cut from the same cloth. That's why I specifically talked about the UW I work at - because I know how we operate. I can't speak for any other UW, but I do know that ours can't be the only "good" UW out there. :)

[arielstarshadow.livejournal.com]

It would be, and they should have been reported.

[grndexter.livejournal.com]

Ummm... could they perhaps have been reaching out to the demographics in your area? People tend to identify with people like themselves - for ex your ad would be more favorably received by more people if it had folks from the local ethnic groups in it than always them "white folks" - with whom other groups have a hard time identifying? Show me an ad with a Paris Hilton look-alike in it and I know immediately it's nothing I'm interested in. Same deal with ethnic groups.

By putting the ethnic people in the roles of givers as opposed to always takers, they could have actually been promoting an anti-stereotype.

[grndexter.livejournal.com]

I usually give to places where the rubber is visibly meeting the road. Like Red Cloud Indian School on the Pine Ridge Reservation, and like the local (area) homeless missions that provide food, clothing and shelter to individuals and families and help them get back on their feet.

For larger need giving, orgs like the Salvation Army and the USO work for me.

[arielstarshadow.livejournal.com]

Charity Navigator is wonderful!

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

What a lovely false dichotomy! We can either show people from different groups in a limiting (not just limited) way, where the positive things they've done are presented as surprising, or we can show Paris Hilton clones! Those are the only options!

[grndexter.livejournal.com]

Targeting ads is not discriminatory nor is it stereotyping. It's just an effort of the advertiser to reach a certain segment of the population. Picturing the group you want to reach is standard advertising methodology when you want to target that group, and has been for a long time. I didn't see the ad pictures, but the way you described them did not sound to me like anyone was "limited". What you described - I probably would not have even noticed the ad.

Like Mamapduck said - "damned if you do, damned if you don't." There are people who WILL be offended no matter what you do. I'm related to a couple of them - the kind of people who can be offended at anything, no matter how innocuous, and who WILL take anything you say wrong. (Want to trade relatives? I have one father and one brother I'm willing to deal for...)

The Paris Hilton illustration in no way relates to this particular ad campaign except as simply an illustration of how *I* would react to an ad with Paris Hilton in it because the demographic/class of people who would care what she does would be the targeted market, not a male old fart from Missouri.

[cissa.livejournal.com]

Yeah- the Boston one is pretty awful on so many accounts. Including the periodic accounting scandals.

OT

[angeyja.livejournal.com]

I am having some trouble here with my ISP which is bouncing the email to your other acct*. I forgot about the problem with gmail and sent it there. I'll try again to non gmail later. :-)

(In addition to not sending mail and apparently losing mail sent to me also. Eep.)

Re: OT

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Eeek! Will be patient, then.