The Curse of the Higher Bar
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 on the receiving end, during my time in higher education, of more “You people should be ashamed of yourselves” e-mails than I care to remember from disgruntled stakeholders who thought we were abandoning our principles for some base motive, I think nonprofits deny the existence of the higher bar at their own peril.
A couple of current situations should serve to illustrate: In New York, Carnegie Hall has tapped the architectural firm of board chair Sandy Weill’s son-in-law to design its $150 million expansion. As if that weren’t bad enough, reports the New York Times:
Sharpening the ethical issue, taxpayers are helping pay Mr. Bibliowicz’s firm, Iu & Bibliowicz Architects. New York State has approved a $5 million grant to Carnegie Hall for planning and design costs. The hall declined to disclose the firm’s fee.
Independent experts on nonprofit law and governance questioned the arrangement.
“As long as the compensation to the son-in-law is reasonable, then there’s no law issue,” said Bruce R. Hopkins, a tax lawyer in Kansas City, Mo., who has written several books on nonprofit rules. “It does enable critics to come forward and say this is self-dealing, and it should function at a higher level than that.”
In the heartland, meanwhile, there’s scandal in Tulsa, Oklahoma, with Richard Roberts, the president of Oral Roberts University (Oral founded the school; Richard is his son), entangled in charges that he used university funds on personal purchases, then canned the professors who blew the whistle on him and his family. Again, whether the misuse of funds happened or not is almost immaterial. Most people believe nonprofits to be of sufficiently higher ethical stock not to engage in such questionable behaviors, and when they do, the damage is not insignificant. | 501(c)
Related Stories
POSTED IN: Accountability, Ethics
0 opinions for The Curse of the Higher Bar
No one has left a comment yet. You know what this means, right? You could be first!
Have an opinion? Leave a comment: