United Way?

Spent the better part of the morning writing up a script for a couple dozen team members to use in making personal contacts across the organization asking for donations tot he United Way.  Yup, it's that time again - the United Way is the big charity that my company has supported for years.

I donate every year; they directly support several local initiatives including the Boy Scouts of America and the Heart of America council, that I am pretty passionate about.

But I've never figured out the motivator for the higher level team to drive such passion around the United Way campaign.  They don't get paid cash for their work with United Way; the exposure and networking doesn't seem that important. Is it just the 'in' thing to do in Oak Row for the executives?

One of the interesting things I had to do in composing the script was build a set of answers to overcome objections.  Really, I've only heard two - charities are scams (United Way only keeps about 10%) and 'I already donate to xyx'.

Do you donate to United Way?  Why?  Why not? What do you think?