Community Health Charities of California Offers a Simple Path for Giving

By Hacienda Network Staff Writer

Corporate giving programs offer a wonderful way for companies to participate in the ongoing welfare of the communities in which they do business. The most efficient programs encourage employee participation by allowing them to contribute via payroll deduction and to choose the cause that their donations help. Those are two of the main appeals of Community Health Charities of California, a federation of over 40 well known, non-profit health charities.

"We raise money for approximately 45 health charities each year," explains Carlynn Williams, the new director of corporate development for Community Health Charities of California. "Our member charities sign an agreement with CHCC which enables us to represent them in corporate payroll deduction campaigns and allows the employees to choose any of our member charities for their donation."

Those charities include such luminaries as the AIDS Research Foundation (amfAR), the Alzheimer's Association, the American Lung Association, the Arthritis Foundation, the California Hospice Foundation, the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation, the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, Easter Seals, the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, the March of Dimes, the National Parkinson Foundation, the Sickle Cell Disease Community Health Network, and St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, among others.

There are a number of benefits to working with CHCC as a gateway to these organizations, Williams says. "Employers can offer a broad assortment of verified non-profit health charities to their employees in one simple method but work with only CHCC as their primary point of contact. Employees can see all of our member choices available to them and choose any or all of them in whatever amount works for them."

CHC's corporate giving programs also allow employees at participating businesses to give to a non-member charity if they would like to do so. "We have a program called 'Donor's Choice' which deals specifically with charities that aren't under our umbrella. As long as the intended recipient is a 501c3, employees can earmark their donation to any charity."

Now in their 35th year of operation, CHCC has a long track record in the greater Bay Area as well as the Tri-Valley, counting employees of local cities and counties, East Bay MUD, BART, and the Lawrence Livermore and Sandia national laboratories among their donors.

For additional information on Community Health Charities of California, contact Carlynn Williams at (925) 947-5771.

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