Combined Federal Campaign CFC FAQs

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) decision referenced above applies to the use of appropriated funds to provide refreshments at CFC events only. The decision to use appropriated funds in other ways to support the CFC may be made by each agency. As before, campaigns are responsible for clearing all CFC events and fundraisers with the agency ethics officers in advance.

The approved CFC logos are located on the OPM website at http://www.opm.gov/cfc/Logos/index.asp. This site is the only authorized distribution point for CFC logos and all individuals and entities using CFC logos must be registered through this site.

Charity lists can be found on the CFC Pledging System. In CFC zones where printed versions of the charity list are printed, charity lists can be through your local Outreach Coordinator (OC). Campaign contact information can be found through the Campaign Locator.

Yes. CFC Charity Lists include a 256-character statement that is crafted by the applicant and submitted to OPM.

This is not required by the IRS. Please see IRS Publication 526 (page 18) for the required documentation. If using take preparation software that should happen to require an address in order for it to accept the information, please use the address for the local campaign in your area. The address may be found using the Campaign Locator.

A federation must have 15 qualifying member organizations, in addition to itself, at the time of its application to be deemed eligible for participation as a federation. The Central Campaign Administrator’s application system will not allow an organization to apply under more than one federation. In these cases, organizations and federations must come to an agreement as to how member organizations are to be listed before applications are submitted. Federations are only listed if they have 15 or more eligible members. If the federation has 14 or fewer members at the time of application, the member organizations will convert to independent organizations.

The Central Campaign Administrator (CCA) is required to provide summaries to charitable organizations of the amount of pledges they received by a date determined by OPM. These summaries will be available on the CCA website.

The Director will approve requests for special solicitations during the CFC solicitation period only upon the showing of extraordinary circumstances.

No. All CFC Charity Lists must be faithful reproductions of those provided by OPM through the Central Campaign Administrator (CCA). This includes the order of local federations and independent organizations within the local portion of the CFC Charity List, which will be determined by a random selection process. The order of organizations within each federation will be determined by that federation. The order within the national and local independent groups will be alphabetical. For more information see 5 CFR §950.401(g)(2).

No. Key Workers, Outreach Coordinator (OC) staff and others assisting with the CFC cannot identify those CFC charitable organizations involved in disaster relief in response to requests from donors unless they are following instructions disseminated by the Director of OPM.

No. The required certifications and documentation must have been completed and submitted prior to the application filing deadline. Incomplete applications may not be completed during the appeal process. Further, documents that were not available at the time of the application deadline cannot be considered on appeal.

Starting with the 2017 application period, organizations that choose to apply to the CFC program must pay the application fee when submitting an application via the online application system. Listing fees are only paid by organizations approved to participate in the campaign.

Yes. However, it must separately apply to all CFC zones in which it wishes to apply.

When a charitable organization joins a federation, it must allow that federation to complete one full campaign cycle involving distribution payments. This does not prevent the charitable organization from signing with a new federation, but the original federation must complete the distribution cycle. For example, a member organization of a federation in the 2017 CFC must allow that federation to complete its distribution for that member through the final payment, which would occur in 2019. The member organization is permitted to join another federation during 2018, but it may not take the distribution away from the original federation.