Many major companies match donations their employees and retirees make to approved organizations. As a Boeing retiree, I take advantage of that company’s gift-matching program to help The Active Age and other nonprofits that I want to support.
For Boeing retirees, the company matches 50 cents on the dollar donations made to approved organizations, up to $3,000 a year (active employees have their donations matched dollar for dollar).
The process is not difficult. Boeing’s gift-matching program is administered by a third party at boeing.yourcause.com. To log onto that website, retirees and employees must use their Boeing (BEMS) ID as their username and then create a unique password. Questions pertaining to the process can be answered by calling YourCause at 1-866-751-6031. Retirees can also email volunteer@exchange.boeing.com for help.
These major Wichita employers also offer gift-matching programs Cargill, Koch Industries, Textron Aviation, Lear Corporation and Johnson Controls.
There may be others that I am not aware of. If your current or former employee is not one listed above, it should not be difficult to find out if they participate in a gift-matching program.
The Active Age depends on reader donations for about 20 percent of its budget. Without those donations, it could not produce and distribute a free monthly newspaper to some 57,000 older Wichita area residents.
Just think what would happen if every reader who is eligible for a gift- matching program took advantage of it. I first started doing so three years ago. I hope more readers of The Active Age will consider this simple way of increasing their support.
Paul Inman is a retired Army officer and former employee of Boeing and Spirit AeroSystems.
