‘Ethics of nonprofit fundraising’ by senior research fellow Stephanie Madden
November 8, 2022 • Stephanie Madden
The ethics of nonprofit fundraising is an undertheorized area. As such, the ethics of effective fundraising tactics used by nonprofits may not be fully considered. For example, the emotionally evocative imagery of starving children may be effective in raising money for an aid organization, but what are the ethics of employing this tactic?
Professional fundraising associations have adopted codes of ethical standards for fundraising practices based largely on legal obligations, such as avoiding conflicts of interest. This is an ethics of justice approach. In contrast, an ethics of care approach considers the obligations we have to relationships with others in fundraising. In a recently published article in the Journal of Philanthropy and Marketing by myself, Virginia Harrison, and Michail Vafeiadis, we theorize professional ethics for nonprofit fundraising based in stewardship and ethics of care.
The work by Kathleen Kelly on stewardship posits that fundraising is primarily a communications-based relationship building function. Tying in an ethics of care approach, we position relational care in communication through dialogue as an ethical springboard of nonprofit fundraising. Specifically, we advocate for multimodal relationship building with all relevant nonprofit stakeholders, including donors, employees, beneficiaries, and volunteers. In this article, we offer dialogic communicative practices grounded in ethics of care for these four key groups whose relational goals intersect with fundraising.
► Donors - Integrating stewardship strategies with ethics of care and dialogic principles emphasizes the importance of a holistic relationship experience for donors. This includes ensuring fit between donors and organizations based on mutual goals and personalized dialogue that provides opportunities for input.
► Employees - Considering employees as stakeholders for fundraising is not about convincing them to donate to the organization they work at. Instead, it is about creating an organizational culture of care where employees become the biggest champions of the organization. One way this can be accomplished is by developing trusting relationships between employees and management through proactive dialogue.
► Beneficiaries - As the opening example indicates, an ethic of care in nonprofit fundraising should not be about disempowering or taking away agency from the beneficiaries of the organization. Beneficiaries should be listened to and feedback mechanisms put in place to ensure the goals of the funded intervention are grassroots driven and most relevant to the needs of the community.
► Volunteers - Not all nonprofit stakeholder categories are mutually exclusive. For example, stewarding the relationship of a nonprofit donor by fostering feelings of involvement may result in them becoming a volunteer or vice versa. Nurturing care-based relationships can result in full investment towards the organization.
In short, ethical nonprofit fundraising requires cultivating and stewarding genuine, care-based relationships between various stakeholders by considering relational goals and communicative practices.
Interested in knowing more? You can reach out Dr. Madden at szm962@psu.edu.