Ethics, Mental Health, and a Turn Away From Conventional Fundraising Wisdom: Conference Notebook

Ethics was center stage at the annual meeting of the Association of Fundraising Professionals, which kicked off with the announcement of two new efforts: a monthlong awareness campaign, AFP Ethics Month, and the first Women’s Impact Summit, an outgrowth of the Women’s Impact Initiative, which was established to curb sexual harassment and help charities deal with challenges posed by the power imbalances between donors and fundraisers.

Both efforts will occur in October. The association also introduced a new code of conduct for the meeting aimed at creating “a harassment-free experience for everyone.”

Ethics Month is expected to become an annual fixture.

“The primary goal is confidence in the sector,” Robbe Healey, vice president for philanthropy at Simpson Senior Services said of the organization’s planned October spotlight on ethics. Healey, who chairs the AFP ethics committee, stressed the association’s longtime commitment to ethics and added, “There are a lot of issues in the current contemporary environment that make ethics and transparency and accountability really come into focus.”

Members of the association commit to following 25 ethical standards. Failure to meet those standards can result in a member’s expulsion from the association.

On October 1, AFP will start a social-media campaign to explain one standard per day, with the hope of demystifying industry ethics for fundraisers, board members, donors, and others.

Within the next few months, the association will also circulate a survey to members to learn more about the resources and education fundraisers need to overcome ethical challenges. These challenges can include drafting a policy on fundraiser bonuses that meets ethical standards and overcoming pressure to share donor information from a past job with a new employer.

“It’s not just on the fundraiser,” said Jason Lee, chief advocacy and strategy officer at the Association of Fundraising Professionals, adding that all nonprofit staffs and leaders, including trustees and chief executives, should understand the standards.

Speakers at sessions throughout the meeting touched on the role of ethics in fundraising, but they also discussed mental health, data analysis, and more. Here are some highlights.

Awareness of Mental Health

This year’s meeting was the first to include a session on mental health in nonprofit workplaces. And judging by the long line of audience members with questions at the end, it was a pressing one for many fundraisers.

Mental health is an “unseen disability,” said David Chow, a director for philanthropy at University of Washington Medicine, and is often overshadowed by efforts to ensure those with physical disabilities are treated equitably.

Making sure more people with mental-health challenges are hired and promoted in the fundraising world is important, he said, because such people bring unique strengths to fundraising, including empathy. “If you have high emotional intelligence and a good deal of self-awareness, you can be very successful in philanthropy, so we should highlight that,” he said.

Ian Adair, executive director of the Gracepoint Foundation, an organization that provides mental-health and substance-abuse services, said he worries that stress, anxiety, depression, and other mental-health issues put a strain on many fundraisers and could be behind the short tenure of many development officials.

Adair also emphasized that it’s crucial in attracting and retaining good employees to create a work environment in which fundraisers feel safe disclosing mental illnesses. Nonprofits should work to accommodate their needs, he said, such as offering flexible schedules or remote-work options.

Fundraisers talk to each other about their experience working at an organization, he noted, and take their needs for such support into consideration when making employment decisions.

Companies are already focusing on this, he added, and it’s “slowly seeping into the nonprofit sector,” but charities need to step up these efforts to be competitive employers.

One audience member asked for advice on how to advocate for more discussions like this at future AFP meetings.

“Mental health is incredibly important for fundraisers,” she said. “You need to be able to deliver — to coax people into giving money — and some days we can’t coax ourselves to get out of our bed or our employees to get out of bed.”

Breaking Old Habits

In a session designed to debunk common assumptions in fundraising, Steve MacLaughlin, vice president for data and analytics at Blackbaud, encouraged fundraisers to rethink conventional wisdom.

For instance, he says, Blackbaud data on its thousands of clients indicates there are ways to personalize communications that don’t involve dividing people into traditional demographic groups, for instance by ZIP code or gender, to send tailored communications.

MacLaughlin suggested instead experimenting with grouping donors based on psychologist Daniel Levinson’s concept of life stages, which examines how priorities and values differ as people age. Donors ages 22 to 28, who are “entering the adult world,” would therefore receive very different communication than donors aged 33 to 40, who are “settling down.”

Such communication, MacLaughlin said, recognizes donors’ life experiences instead of treating them like data points.

MacLaughlin also suggested ditching the vision of donor relationships as a pyramid that begins with a donor’s first gift and advances to the top with a big gift. That approach according to Blackbaud’s research, means that 60 percent of donors with the potential to give big remain untapped by fundraisers.

Instead, he suggested, fundraisers should see their process as a constant cycle of identifying and assessing donors, nurturing a relationship, asking for a donation, acknowledging the contribution, and providing opportunities for repeat or increased giving.

MacLaughlin compared donors to sharks that must keep moving or die.

The Dark Side of Fundraising

Consultants often stress that donors’ needs should be put first, but that model can go too far. Researchers Heather Hill and Ian MacQuillin explored the dark side of that philosophy in their presentation of fundraising think tank Rogare’s research on how donors can use their gifts to access unrelated benefits from charitable organizations.

MacQuillin pointed to a “slightly dysfunctional ethic of fundraising” as a possible contributing factor to the abuses of power his survey explores.

A separate Rogare report presented at the conference explored solutions to key fundraiser challenges, including stagnant public trust in philanthropy, scant opportunities for professional growth for young fundraisers, and a dearth of diversity at nonprofits.

Among the recommendations in the report, nonprofits should:

• Educate donors about the real costs of meeting their missions — including general operating costs, like rent and health-insurance premiums.
• Facilitate organizationwide conversations on diversity and inclusion.
• Create a universal ethics code for fundraisers.