Offering Covid-19 vaccines to major donors or board members ahead of people with the greatest need violates the Association of Fundraising Professionals’ ethical code, the organization’s president said in a statement issued Tuesday.
“The idea of hospital systems, or any charity, ignoring protocols, guidance or restrictions — regardless of origin — and offering certain donors and board members the opportunity to ‘skip the line’ and receive vaccinations ahead of their scheduled time is antithetical to the values of philanthropy and ethical fundraising,” president Mike Geiger said.
Reports of hospital systems offering vaccinations to major donors and board members have been piling up in recent weeks.
A hospital system in Washington State welcomed donors who had given at least $10,000, among others, to set up coronavirus vaccination appointments on an “invite-only” basis, for example. The portal used by the public offered no open slots through March, The Seattle Times reported. Overlake Medical Center & Clinics abandoned the practice after getting a call from the governor’s office.
In Maine, a nonprofit health-care provider offered a small number of early doses of the vaccine to donors more than a week before widely registering people 70 and older for appointments on Friday, the Bangor Daily News reported. Employees of MaineGeneral Health’s philanthropy office called people who had donated, the newspaper said. MaineGeneral said the effort was intended to test its processes before it opened appointments to the public. Less than a third of the 40 people who were offered early access were donors, a hospital spokesman told the newspaper.
In New York, the University of Rochester Medical Center is under investigation for a January email that suggested a special vaccine route for donors, news station WROC reported. Executives at the medical center have since apologized.
And in Florida, the chief executive of MorseLife Health System, a high-end nursing home and assisted-living facility in West Palm Beach, invited board members and major donors to receive immunizations, according to the Washington Post.
Potentially Illegal
The activities mentioned in these news-media accounts violate at least two standards of the AFP code, Geiger said. They harm the reputation of the organizations involved and conflict with a fundraiser’s ethical obligation not to put a nonprofit in jeopardy. In addition, they may be illegal.
These behaviors “transgress the very notion and spirit of philanthropy and are therefore clearly unethical and inequitable,” Geiger said.
The fundraisers’ association requires members to comply with its Code of Ethical Standards, which was designed to provide concrete guidelines for people who raise money for nonprofits. Members can be sanctioned or expelled from the organization for violating the code, and the group publishes a list of such individuals on its website.
