The older I’ve gotten, the more libertarian I’ve become. In general, people should be able to do what they want, I believe, especially in their personal lives, as long they’re not misled about the risks involved and as long as their behavior doesn’t harm others. Gambling, for example, I’m fine with: I play poker every […]
Nonprofits are human endeavors, and as noble as are the intentions of those who found them and work for them, malfeasance will happen. Even within those confines, it’s still striking that a nonprofit that assesses the effectiveness of charities based on, among other criteria, their transparency would itself be stung by the willful obfuscation of […]
Intrigued by the Association of Fundraising Professionals’ call for a congressional ban on percentage-based fundraising, I dropped the organization a note to ask whether it offers members any kind of endorsement or recognition — an AFP seal of approval — for adhering to its ethical standards. No, responded AFP CEO Paulette Maehara in an e-mail,
but […]
Stung by congressional criticism of practices that reflect poorly on its field, the Association of Fundraising Professionals is calling for legislation banning percentage-based fundraising, in which fundraisers receive a set percentage of every dollar successfully solicited. AFP’s Code of Ethics prohibits the practice and argues that nonprofits are mistaken if they think that consultants who […]
In an era when yellow “Support the Troops” ribbons are plastered on countless cars, in which a politician’s criticism of a war is immediately and reflexively followed by praise for the soldiers fighting it, it is not simply morally wrong for a veterans’ charity to spend most of its donations on fundraising instead of wounded […]
Corporate malfeasance may have been the impetus for the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, but the nonprofit community was paying attention, too. According to Grant Thornton LLP’s fifth annual National Board Governance Survey for Not-for-Profit Organizations, 87 percent of nonprofits have implemented new governance policies, up from 20 percent just four years ago.
Some notable board […]
The last thing the American Red Cross needed was a personal scandal, but it’s got one now. One of the world’s most visible nonprofits yesterday sacked Mark Everson, its president and CEO, after just six months on the job not because of anything performance-related but because he was sleeping with an underling. As the Red […]
As I’ve noted before, nonprofits generally are held to a higher ethical standard than their for-profit brethren. Even the appearance of impropriety is enough to cause damage. And so the Panel on the Nonprofit Sector’s release of Principles for Good Governance and Ethical Practice: A Guide for Charities and Foundations, a collection of 33 practices […]
Few are surprised at corporate sleaziness, but when ethical lapses hit the nonprofit world, they get more attention. I believe that nonprofits are held to a higher standard when it comes to avoiding conflicts of interest and sticking to the mission. Whether that’s fair or not is a topic for another post, but having been […]
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