✨✨General Discussions

In our community, we have a “no tipping” policy, so we conduct an annual fund drive to provide a gifts to our non-salaried employees individually. Our administration is assiduous to remain exclusively hands-off despite the fact that providing our appreciation complements their staffing efforts. Thus, we do not have access to existing community electronic messaging, and must market using flyers, etc. Our account is completely separate from the organization’s and contributions are not tax qualified, but administration is concerned about how employees might not report the gift to the IRS, and that might create an issue if they were to provide admin support. I’m looking for information how other Life Plan communities approach this. Appreciate any thoughts regarding policy and procedures that others use.

Best,

Day Ritt

Our community, Ingleside at King Farm in Rockville, Maryland, does the same. We have an Employee Appreciation Fund run by the Resident Council. Except for top management, employees get a check from the Fund based on the number of hours they worked - the same hourly rate for the Appreciation check regardless of the employee's pay rate.

Our two sister communities, Ingleside at Rock Creek in DC and Westminster at Lake Ridge in Virginia, do the same.

Bill Samuel

Our current policy is to include everyone except the Executive Director and the Assistant Executive Director in our appreciation Fund. This includes other salaried employees below these two individuals. Is this a fairly standard practice, or do other communities limit recipients to non- salaried employees only? Some of our residents are questioning our policy, and I would like to hear how other communities approach this. Thanks in advance.

When the head of HR makes $170,000 and the Facilities Manager makes $128,000 it seems only appropriate to use the fund for the people who actually interface with residents (aka do the work) and who make a pittance of those salaries.

At my community the Appreciation Fund is distributed to all employees up to, but not including, the heads of departments.

The Medford Leas employee Appreciation Fund also gives annual checks to non-management staff. This is instead of giving tips. Much better for residents. It works as long as most residents give to the Appreciation Fund. Residents have many ways to help staff at Medford Leas - like the Thrift Shop which sells many things to staff very cheap. Everything is donated by residents and usually lightly used and of high quality.

In our community (Greenspring in Springfield VA), the appreciation fund is only for hourly paid employees. It is administered by the Philanthropy Department, although the contributions are considered "gifts" to the staff rather than charitable donations.

The Philanthropy group does all the solicitation, generates flyers and reminders and hosts an event where all the staff receive their awards and are "cheeredon" by residents at a large party.

At Goodwin House Bailey’s Crossroads (Falls Church, VA) all employees below department heads are recipients of the Employee Gift Fund. Gifts are based on length of employment and whether full or part time. We collect funds all year and have a dedicated fundraising effort in November. The first job of the campaign chairs is to recruit new chairs for the following year. We try to make use of as many volunteers as possible to broaden the base of residents who have invested time and energy and are committed to the strength of the campaign. Checks are distributed at a celebration the week after Thanksgiving.

At Windcrest, another Erickson community, the Philanthropy Committee working closely with the Philanthropy Manager, raise the money for 3 funds that all relate to our community (only). One of these is the Staff Appreciation Fund that raises money in October & November to benefit only hourly staff. No salaried staff, most of whom do not directly interface with residents, are eligible for this end-of-year bonus. This is a very important stipulation for the fundraising here - many residents ask if the highly paid salaried staff will receive this benefit, because they would not participate in donating if that were the case.