In the wake of Canadian citizens being detained for weeks in the United States, and others being harassed or turned away at the border, some Canadian fundraisers are canceling plans to attend the Association of Fundraising Professionals’s annual conference later this month.
“I’m sad about the realities that are facing us right now,” says Guy Mallabone, CEO of Global Philanthropic Canada, a fundraising consulting firm. “I’m fearful, and that might be something that’s a surprise to a lot of my American colleagues and friends.”
Mallabone and other Canadian fundraisers are anxious that what happened to Jasmine Mooney, a Canadian who was held in an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention center for nearly two weeks, might happen to them.
“We’re seeing videos here where this woman is just walking outside and masked men come up to her and grab her,” says Harvey McKinnon, president of an eponymous fundraising firm in Canada. “That’s North Korea- or Putin-style authoritarianism.”
With that in mind, McKinnon, who was scheduled to present at the conference, isn’t going. “I have a friend who’s going to the conference from Europe who ... erased nine years of his social media, and he’s getting a burner phone to come to the States,” McKinnon says. “So it’s not just me being paranoid.”
McKinnon offered to host his conference session virtually over Zoom, but was told no. Mallabone isn’t going either and has called upon Canadians to boycott the event.
AFP responded on LinkedIn, saying it understood Canadians may feel “unsafe” to come to the United States, but that “this moment calls for more connection, not less. … At a time when political and social forces may seek to divide, we have an opportunity to model what true collaboration looks like.”
AFP Response Draws More Ire
While AFP had hoped to quell the debate with its response, the missive drew more ire. While AFP critics, like Mallabone, know the group is not responsible for U.S. border policies, they believe AFP could do a better job leading.
“Their response was a ‘yes … but,’” Mallabone says. “They need to be standing up to American policies around IDEA [inclusion, diversity, equity, accessibility] and safety issues and speaking loudly. If they’re leading, then they need to give practical alternatives to Canadians who want to get their money back or who want to participate in a virtual conference.”
H. Art Taylor, who took over as CEO of AFP on April 1, says he wants Canadians to feel safe and understands if they don’t want to come to the United States.Taylor adds the Trump administration’s tactics toward noncitizens “caught some of us off guard,” and the association is trying to figure out how best to address these issues in the three weeks before the conference starts.
“We’re looking at ways that we can possibly be supportive of them,” he told the Chronicle. “We’re trying to figure out what more we can do to make people who won’t be able to attend feel connected to the conference.”
Taylor says recordings of conference sessions will be available after the event to be streamed. However, Mallabone thinks more should have been done for some type of synchronous offerings.
McKinnon says that while the U.S. policies are not the fault of AFP, sometimes economic boycotts are crucial to changing policy. “What power do we have?” he says. “Very little. But if we stand up and say economically, we’re not going to give money to somebody who’s bullying us, that’s an important thing to do.”
Mallabone notes that he’s been an AFP member for 30 years, started two Canadian AFP chapters, and previously served on the AFP board, but he considers it important to stand up for what is right. “So for me to come to this point is pretty significant,” he says. “Solidarity means standing apart sometimes, not just standing together.”
