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You’ve reached the Ethics Corner at the web site of The National Capital Gift Planning Council. The primary objective here is to establish and grow an ethics-based dialogue about many important issues facing gift planners and other fundraisers at charities today. I hope this will elevate consciousness in an area we all confront from time to time.
Although the Partnership for Philanthropic Planning (formerly the National Committee on Planned Giving), the Association for Fundraising Professionals, and Independent Sector have all developed ethical codes, we have little guidance on how to best apply them to everyday situations. It would be as if we had only the Constitution and no case law to rely upon when making legal decisions.
Yet inherent in planned giving are many conflicts arising from the planning process that cloud the intentions of planners – both employees of nonprofits and for-profit advisors – and that at times confuse donors. As decisions made today can have consequences years, even decades, from now, we who are most involved in the planning process must at the outset be prepared to think through as many issues as possible in the complex world of planned giving.
Acting ethically requires more than reacting on a gut level. In fact, reacting only on a gut level – no matter how “right” we may think it is – is actually irresponsible, and the result is frequently the opposite of ethics-based decision-making. While each person’s own credo of right and wrong plays a vital role in making ethical decisions, all too often dilemmas arise where more than one decision or course of action can be right as well as suspect. The key is to make difficult decisions with an understanding of why we make them – and then, to the best of our ability, to communicate our reasons.
I teach ethics and philanthropy at New York University and it is apparent that most students of nonprofits and fundraising sorely need training on how to do the right thing in our unique and wonderful world of philanthropy. Based on the queries I receive, it is clear that those who have worked in this field, even those who have served charities for many years, have too few places to go to discuss issues that are not covered by legislation or the IRS. This site is meant to address that need.
Each month, the National Capital Gift Planning Council will post real questions from real people and I will answer them to the best of my ability. All identities, both of people and places, will be kept confidential.
Yet, as no one person has the correct answer – especially in the world of ethics – in addition to my answer we will also post representative reactions and opposing responses of our readers. As of now – February 2009 – the site is new and much work will be done to increase the content and make it easy for readers to take part in the conversation.
But it is a conversation. It is not an edict from any one person.
But the responses are based on a process. One of the first steps is to determine if a matter is in fact an ethical one. That is, if it’s a legal question – or it boils down to a legal question – the ethical response cannot interfere with what needs to be done by law. Ethics deals in the arena of the unknown, the gray – and often wide – space between determining what is legal and what is right. Of course, determining what is right is often a subjective process.
This site is about creating a sounding board, a disinterested voice where we will do our best to apply the Model Standards (as well as other ethical models) to specific situations. The goal is to increase the level of awareness of the components within an ethics-based decision-making process.
Added 1/31/2009
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