The Party Fund Problem–Collecting Money in the Workplace

Dear Evil HR Lady,

I often find myself in scenarios where my co-workers ask the team to contribute money for a common cause. It might be the birthday cake fund (”The team has hired 5 new people and we need to buy a bigger cake, so we need an extra five dollars.”) When a co-worker gets married, the team wants to purchase them a gift card. And the like.

Now, I often don’t mind contributing to these kinds of things - five bucks here, ten dollars here, and it’s all good. But I hate the emails I get asking for money. I don’t like that someone keeps a mental spreadsheet of who contributes and who doesn’t. And harder still is when I am tasked with passing around the hat - is there even a tactful non-obligatory anonymous way to collect money without making people feel pressure?

I suggested that, in one instance, I would just purchase the gift card on behalf of the team. But no, they clamored, the gift is from *all of us*, not from *you*, which means I might not collect enough for a meaningful gift and forces me to beg for money from everyone else.

How might I suggest that our team proceed for the next money-collection? Should I just purchase the gift (which I am willing to do on my own means) and pretend like everybody contributed equally?

These initiatives are not coming from management, so there is no foul play there. How should workplace community pots of money be handled?

The Party Fund Problem–Collecting Money in the Workplace