I started donating to BLM, the National Forest Service, and Planned Parenthood with auto-deduct in 2016. Also to a local food bank and PAWS, where we adopted our cats, every 6 months or so.

Misogyny and Ol’ Boy network at an American nonprofit???
Who would have thought????

I, too, worked for a United Way-supported charity and during the annual UW campaign they asked US to donate a portion of our paychecks to OURSELVES. Totally bonkers. We were treated like the corporate donors in that they wanted to see X% of staff contribute some pay to the campaign. I was paid $27,000 at the time. 

We used to get the same thing at a former employer. Guilt and pressure to donate. Then the scandals started coming out and all of a sudden UW is not a thing anymore.

Yes, and in my case it was an entire government bureau who was 1000% on board with breaking new organization-wide United Way fundraising goals each year, and even paid a *government employee* coordinator to run the fundraising campaign on UW’s behalf... funding the position was described as an “in-kind” donation. Wha??…

The United Way is a scam! You can pick where you would like your money to go, but they have no obligation to actually send it that charity. And! The United Way makes life so goddamn difficult for people like me, who work at the charities. I don’t need this much trouble sending acknowledgments to 4 different people for…

I had a long ago employer deduct a United Way "donation" from my paycheck. I got away from that job asap and have never actually donated to them since.

Oh the anger I engendered at my workplace when I was the only person who refused to participate and ruined their big plan for 100 percent participation.

I’ve met quite a few Mormons in my life and without fail they are pleasant, polite, and committed to community work. But there’s a rotten core to it, like Southern manners and Minnesota nice. The politeness is really  a cover for a corrosive church that embodies vicious racism, misogyny, homophobia, and abuse of…

Also isn’t UW only a middleman? If I’m going to donate, I’ll do it myself.

The United Way is a poorly run organization that for some reason got employers to get on board and guilt their employees every year. About 20 years ago I started opting out, and got constant pressure to meet the “companies goal of xx% participation”.

These types of schools are so prevalent in Utah, and such a big business, that I’m shocked there was enough support to get any oversight.

I had several friends who worked at schools like this, because it was a job you could get with little education and training. They had several stories of children stuck in…

Any therapeutic environment where children can be sequestered from independent oversight or access to an advocate is a problem, and is exactly the type of environment that parents wanting conversion therapy would seek out. “But the treatment itself is good!” doesn’t obviate the need to have protections in place other…

What really makes good treatments more stigmatized and hard to access is the existence of those residential ‘treatment’ programs that are allowed to operate without oversight or protection of the rights of the children they monetize.

That’s the main issue here, right? That there is a dangerous lack of regulation and accountability? A safely, ethically run facility is probably beneficial for many kids and people like Veit above did have their lives turned around for the better. But do parents really know that the facility they’re sending their kid…

I understand that’s the language used in the program you were in. It’s still a euphemism. Does a ‘sent away’ teenager have a right to have someone - other than their parents or the people running the program - determine whether they should or should not be there? Do they have any right to object if the program is…

It’s a very fine line between “Strict” and “Abusive”.

It’s not shitting on you or people like you to admit that there’s a huge potential for abuse in treating children like property without rights, and to consider whether there are better options - like a formal commitment process - that would allow residential treatment programs to help very troubled children.

That was my move when I was still working from the office. It was really the only time in my day I could find to read. Working from home has changed that. I can’t manage to get out of bed until 5 minutes before I need to log on to the computer, so I am now into lunchtime showers. 

I would take lunch alone at my desk over going in to a dedicated no mask zone where several other people eat their lunch together any day.