Three out of four fundraisers say they have faced undue pressure from donors, often in the form of sexual harassment but also through arm-twisting to advance a donor’s personal agenda and career advancement or those of their friends and relatives, according to a study whose preliminary findings will be released today at the annual meeting of the Association of Fundraising Professionals here.
Fundraisers participating in a survey have shared examples of donors attempting to use their gifts to secure medical-school admission for a child, install new leaders at an organization, and control which caterer would be hired for a gala, according to preliminary findings from the survey.
What’s more, two out of three fundraisers told the researchers they had seen at least one instance of a donor attempting to pressure an organization into using a gift for a purpose that strayed from the charity’s mission.
The survey, which is still ongoing, is not scientific — it is being circulated to associations of fundraisers — but it is the first phase of a study by the Rogare Fundraising Think Tank that will explore what its authors call “donor dominance,” or how financial benefactors inappropriately control or influence the mission, staff, or administration of the charities they support.
The second phase will use the preliminary findings to shape a more rigorous inquiry; researchers are asking fundraisers to continue to respond to the questionnaire before they prepare the next one.
Power Imbalance
The impetus for the study was a Financial Times exposé of sexually inappropriate behavior at the Presidents Club Charity Dinner, a London event where powerful business leaders and others — all of whom were men — groped and harassed female servers.
Scholars are seeking to measure how frequently donors take advantage of the inherent power imbalance in the donor-beneficiary relationship and how this behavior affects fundraisers’ ability to meet their organizations’ missions.
“Our whole profession is built on the public trust,” said Heather Hill, one of the researchers and a former vice president for advancement at Concordia College. “When we’re making excuses for behavior, when we’re allowing people to be treated poorly, when we allow resources to be used for things other than the mission, we’re compromising that trust.”
A Matter of Trust
The preliminary analysis Hill is presenting today along with Ian MacQuillin, Rogare’s director, is based on responses from nearly 250 fundraisers. Thus far, participants have come from Afghanistan, Australia, Barbados, Britain, Canada, Germany, and the United States.
The Rogare study builds on findings from a 2018 Harris Poll survey by the Chronicle and the Association of Fundraising Professionals, which revealed that 20 percent of fundraisers believe sexual harassment is widespread in their profession. Of fundraisers who have been sexually harassed on the job, two in three said they were harassed by a donor.
Board Members as Offenders
Thus far, 50 percent of the women who responded to the Rogare survey said they had experienced sexually inappropriate behavior from donors — most commonly in the form of unwanted comments or sexually charged innuendo or banter.
Of fundraisers who have experienced this behavior, 40 percent said they did not report it, and 32 percent said they did but their employer did not confront the donor and “carried on as if nothing or little had happened.”
The survey questions drill deep into donor behavior, including which kinds of donors — such as board members, major donors, individual donors, or companies — were the worst offenders, whether fundraisers reported this abuse to their employers, and how, if at all, charities responded to these complaints.
“Board members have not fared well thus far in the survey,” Hill said.
While she expected major donors to exhibit this type of controlling behavior, Hill said she was surprised at how many fundraisers identified board members as the offenders. Typically, trustees are expected to both donate to an organization and help direct its mission, which can have a “compounding effect” on the donor-beneficiary power dynamic, according to Hill, who is also chair of the board of CFRE International.
One fundraiser shared an experience of a board member who, on the verge of writing a check, asked “What will this get me with you?” Another fundraiser described a board member threatening to withhold funds for an event if she wasn’t added to the top of a waitlist for tickets to a different event.
Identifying Blind Spots
Donors may not be aware that their behavior perpetuates a power imbalance, Hill says. “When someone asks for a couple extra tickets or if they ask if they can use the copy machine or something, I don’t think they’re thinking of the back-office costs,” said Hill.
But these requests — and organizations’ consistent acquiescence to them — exacerbate a power dynamic that overwhelmingly favors donors. These problems are likely to keep getting worse, Hill said: Trends in giving point to charities’ increasing reliance on people who can give bigger gifts, as the number of smaller donors declines. “We need to prepare for how we respond to and manage that reality,” Hill said in an email.
Fundraisers often worry, Hill says, that “if we don’t take this gift because of this person’s behavior or the strings attached to it, will we be able to make it up?”
Thus far, the study has identified blind spots among fundraisers and charities and areas where fundraisers, donors, and board members need further education to put their relationship in greater balance. “It’s not just about how to make a donor feel good about their gift but what happens when a donor starts to make you feel bad about their gift.” Hill said.
The second part of the study will probably examine key problem areas in the donor-beneficiary relationship and explore solutions. Hill believes that describing why these relationships sour and how often that happens will bolster public understanding and confidence in philanthropy.
“If we don’t have the public trust, we don’t receive the philanthropic contributions we need for the missions to succeed,” Hill said. “The beneficiaries are the ones who ultimately suffer from that.”
Correction: A previous version of this article incorrectly said the research was conducted at the University of Plymouth. The Rogare Fundraising Think Tank is now an independent entity, no longer at the university.
