How to Keep Office Solicitations From Busting Your Budget

Are office solicitations becoming a regular drain on your paycheck? Here’s what you need to know about navigating this financial and etiquette minefield.

Know your workplace policy:

Many companies are well aware of how uncomfortable workplace solicitations can be, since you’re a captive audience for the solicitor-du-jour, and you have to maintain a pleasant working environment with them, to boot. That’s why it’s common for workplaces to have solicitation policies. These policies will often prohibit one-on-one solicitations between employees, but allow more general solicitations.

If you’re feeling pressured to give, start by finding out the specific policy in place. If multiple coworkers are not adhering to the policy, then you can say something to HR or your manager about making sure everyone knows the policy.

Develop a personal policy:

Even if there’s no policy in place at work, you can still create a policy for yourself regarding donations. Having such a policy for yourself can help you say no comfortably without feeling cornered, since you’ve already made the decision before the sign-up sheet has gone around.

Here are a couple of ways to shape your policy:

Never give at work

If you have a flat refusal in place because you don’t give money at work, then Rhonda in marketing won’t be wondering why you gave to Keisha’s fundraiser but not hers. If this is your policy, you could say you’ve budgeted for charitable donations and take care of it entirely outside of work.

Only give in specific categories

Decide ahead of time that you will only donate to certain categories of charities. For instance, you might decide you’ll only support children, education, and the arts. That makes it easier to say no if a coworker is raising money for their church or for medical research. Those are worthy causes, but they’re not in the categories you’ve chosen to support.

Make a charitable budget

Determine the amount of money you’re willing to spend on office solicitations. That could be an overall budget — like $150 for the year — or an amount like $5 per solicitation. If you choose an overall budget, you can tell anyone asking after you’ve used up the $150 you’d allotted that you’ve reached the end of your budget and to try you again next year. If you choose the $5 per request, that will allow you to support everyone without destroying your overall budget.

Pressure from management

There are a couple of ways to handle these kinds of uncomfortable solicitations. The first is to only give what you can. You can also ask if there are other ways to be supportive or even run the errands necessary for the any office event in your off time.

Perfect your “No, thanks!”:

Office solicitations are awkward because it can feel like there will be some sort of work or social repercussions for saying no to a request for money. But you have every right to refuse to give, no matter who is asking. You don’t need to give a reason or an excuse. You simply need to say no.

Perfecting your polite “No” will go a long way to making sure these requests leave no hard feelings on either side. Here are some ways to refuse graciously:

• “No, thank you.” It’s an old standby for a reason. If your coworker presses, you can say that you appreciate their passion for the cause, but you’re not interested.
• “I’ve already allocated all of my charitable spending for the year.” This is polite, to the point, and not something anyone can argue with.

• “I don’t donate to organizations unless I have done my own research on them.” This makes it clear to the office solicitor that you ultimately get to decide where your money goes.

Culled From: Wisebread