Case Studies
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Are the fundraiser’s concerns valid? What should she do?
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What about the director’s key concerns for productivity?
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Who should determine the ethics of this situation? Staff, board, funders, outside professional organization?
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Is there any difference between religious and secular organizations and funders, in such situations?
A CASE IN CHRISTIAN ETHICS: AGAPE
By Alice M. Price
AGAPE is a small, ecumenical Christian agency providing services in a six-county area. Its programs are focused primarily on low-income residents and include: rent and utility assistance, homeless prevention counseling, layettes, dental aid for the elderly, sponsorship of home repair workcamps, refugee and immigration services, etc. AGAPE has also launched several other ongoing, now independent non-profits in the community, such as a homeless shelter, HOSPICE, battered women’s program, food co-op, and farmers market.
Through its twenty years of work, AGAPE has established a wide base of funders and a well-deserved reputation for honesty and frugality. Funders include national and regional denominational offices, congregations, and individuals in the region, and a wid range of private foundations.
Due to tight economic times generally and a turn-over in top leadership, AGAPE is experiencing a rather severe cash-flow crunch. After a meeting with the officers of the Board, the Director recommends a (hopefully temporary) cut-back in overhead. All full-time employees are asked to take a 10% cut in pay and a reduction in health benefits.
The agency fundraiser, who has been working ¾ time, is cut to ½ time salary. In an effort to boost her productivity, she is also offered the following incentive option: a 10% commission on all grants funded, up to the equivalent of a full-time salary (including her ½ time pay).
The fundraiser states that she cannot possibly get her work done on ½ time, and that further, it is unethical for her to receive any commission for her work. She will have to quit, unless the director withdraws this proposal.
It is the director’s understanding that some other non-profits and religious organizations in the region use similar incentive plans with fundraisers. He does not feel the option allows any unfair gain. It is his intent to include the 10% commission explicitly in grant proposal budgets. He requests an authoritative written source to support her ethical concern, and sets a check-in time.
Here’s What Happened:
As is usually true, there were certain other issues below the surface of this dispute. The director and the fundraiser were not getting along. The director felt she was not being productive enough in getting grants out. The fundraiser liked her independence, was very self-directed in her style, and had not been open to a variety of suggestions over the past few months.
At the follow-up staff meeting, the fundraiser handed the director a newsletter of the National Society of Fund-raising Executives, declaiming percentage compensation, and left, refusing further discussion. Later that day, she mailed a resignation letter to the agency’s board, stating the percentage compensation option was unethical. She also mailed a shorter letter to all of AGAPE’s major funders, simply stating that she could not be party to unethical fund-raising practices—but not stating what practices she was referring to.
The agency was left short-staffed to pick-up the pieces of its fund-raising plan, as well as to decide how to respond—if at all—to the letters which had been sent to its major funders.
Could this situation have been avoided?
Now that these events have happened, what should the agency do to restore its integrity?
Based on a true story. Reprinted with permission from InterVarsity Fresno’s Marketplace Study Group.
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