Leaders of the Association of Fundraising Professionals on Sunday kicked off their annual meeting here by pledging to promote a “zero tolerance” policy for sexual harassment.
“No donation and no donor is worth someone’s respect or self-worth,” said Ann Hale, the association’s chair and chief development officer of the Anchorage Museum.
The fundraising industry, she told the audience, is uniquely suited to tackle harassment in the #MeToo era. “Working together, I know we can transform the profession and serve as a model for the rest of the world.”
The association pointed to a study by Harris Poll that it and the Chronicle released this month noting that one in four female fundraisers says she’s been sexually harassed — and that 65 percent of those who’ve had those experiences say a donor was the culprit. That finding prompted speakers here to urge charities to do more to protect their staff members.
As the #MeToo movement reverberates through workplaces across America, nonprofit leaders say it is also triggering a reckoning, and creating an opportunity, in charitable fundraising.
“There’s this pressure to get the cash no matter what,” said moderator Ligia Pena, global-legacy manager at Greenpeace International. “How do we change that to protect our staff no matter what?”
Ms. Pena was joined in conversation by Timothy Sandoval, the Chronicle of Philanthropy staff writer who spearheaded the study that showed the pervasiveness of sexual harassment in the profession.
Sandoval and other panelists said they were hard-pressed to find nonprofits that had created a clear protocol for handling sexual-harassment complaints.
Without such clear direction, bad situations escalate, said the panelists.
“So much comes from the top down,” said Beth Ann Locke, director of advancement for the faculty of arts and sciences at Simon Fraser University. “It’s not that an executive director or a VP allows it to happen, but they don’t stop it.”
Fears of Retaliation
A key part of those protocols, some panelists suggested, was to appoint at least one staff member who could be a point of contact for colleagues who need to report an incident of harassment, whether the perpetrator is a donor or someone on staff.
About two weeks ago, Pena said, Greenpeace announced it would create a new system in which a “person of trust” in each office, who does not work in human resources or upper management, would be trained to field and handle harassment complaints from colleagues.
“The big topic right now in the international [nonprofit] field is what happened at Oxfam,” said Pena, referring to recent reports of sexual misconduct by employees of the aid group. The episode is prompting other organizations to think about how to handle inappropriate behavior.
In the Chronicle and Association of Fundraising Professionals survey, 27 percent of fundraisers who said they had been harassed took no action. Panelists discussed the fears employees have, especially when a donor is the culprit.
“There’s a fear of saying something wrong,” Locke said. “You don’t want to make a mistake or lose the gift. You don’t want to be a troublemaker.”
The threat of retaliation is real, said Candice McGlen, a human-resources expert on the panel. Organizations may have whistle-blower polices aimed to protect against punishing employees who speak up about abuse, but those polices may define retaliation too narrowly. “You can say, I’m not giving her the silent treatment. We didn’t demote her. But there are so many ways it shows up.”
Often, she added, “organizations are looking to maintain or protect those star employees.” The result, McGlen said, is that rather than handle a complaint of harassment in a way that protects the victim, “it becomes about minimizing the scandal.” Having a succession plan in place, McGlen said, can prevent such situations: “If you have employees that feel invincible, that no one can replace them, that’s when these behaviors happen.”
Vanessa Chase Lockshin, a consultant and longtime advocate for women’s equity in the fundraising field, said that when employees do report incidents, leaders need to be prepared to follow through.
“It’s really easy to talk a good game when it comes to policy,” Lockshin said. “It’s much harder to stand by it when things get difficult.”
“Are executive directors prepared to say, You cannot be a donor here anymore; we don’t want your money? Are they prepared to say to a difficult staff member, You can’t work here anymore?”
‘A Radical Next Step’
Responding to an audience suggestion, Lockshin said she thought creating a “fundraisers’ bill of rights” would be useful in clarifying issues involving donors’ behavior and fundraisers’ safety.
“I feel like that would be a very radical next step,” she said. " We talk about how employees are very undervalued. Well, this would be a way to value the people who are doing this work.”
One member of the audience, Peter Drury, vice president for mission advancement at Make-a-Wish for Alaska and Washington, said his organization was dealing with a situation in which a donor had made an inappropriate comment to a Make-a-Wish employee.
The organization’s management conferred with its legal counsel and is taking steps to address the issue with the donor — and to protect the fundraiser. The plan for communicating with the donor, Drury said, has two goals: to deliver a clear message that the comment was inappropriate but to “err on the side of being respectful.”
If what he calls “phase one” of the plan doesn’t get the message through, the charity is prepared to walk away from future gifts.
“We’re not in this work for people to get hurt,” Drury said.
