Organizations should make changes that reduce sexual harassment, wipe out the pay gap between women and men, and otherwise level the playing field for women in fundraising, says a new report from Rogare, an international fundraising think tank.
The work is the second phase of a project started in 2019 in which the think tank identified issues that were holding women at nonprofits back. Some of those problems include sexual harassment by donors, lower pay, and not being promoted to leadership positions.
“Our intent was to not just leave it as identifying the issues because there are a lot of other groups doing that,” says Heather Hill, Rogare chair and head of international philanthropy at Chapel & York. “But we also wanted to say, what do you actually do about it?”
Hill says the new report attempts to answer that question. Released on International Women’s Day, the report, which Rogare describes as a blueprint, recommends strategies organizations can implement to address some of the problems women fundraisers face.
“[The report] looks at what we can do at the structural level, the organizational level, and the individual level that will result in sustainable change,” Hill says.
A key recommendation is to create a donor code of conduct that lays out expectations for donors. When women experience sexual harassment, they often feel they’re in a no-win situation because the organization won’t do anything for fear of losing the donor, says Jessica Rose, a fundraiser and social-sciences researcher at the University of Cambridge who helped create Rogare’s model code of conduct. The model code is included in the report.
“There’s no desire to confront the donor,” Rose says. “What often happens is the female fundraiser is taken off the donor. Someone else is assigned to the donor — often a male fundraiser.”
This kind of situation harms the careers of women fundraisers. “That female fundraiser had particular fundraising goals that she needed to meet,” Hill says. “She no longer has that donor because that potential gift in a portfolio went to someone else. So she could end up being penalized by not wanting to work with the donor who was mistreating her. And the male colleague ends up being rewarded for securing this large gift.”
Having a donor code of conduct “brings into the donor’s mind that this organization is paying some attention to this,” Rose says. Both she and Hill say organizations need to back the fundraiser and be willing to lose gifts if a donor violates the code.
The blueprint also recommends pay transparency to reduce the likelihood that women fundraisers are paid less than their male counterparts, training to help fundraisers learn about and deal with structural inequity, and safe spaces to discuss issues with peers and management.
Another recommendation is for organizations that rate charities to include a gender performance measure in their rating. That could look at whether there is an equitable mix of male and female leaders, as well as whether women employees are paid equally for equal work. Charity watchdogs have the potential to influence organizations, Hill says.
“Charities would like to have a good rating so that they’re positively perceived by the public as doing all the things they should be doing to be the most effective organization they can be,” she says. “Without some sort of incentive, it’s very easy to continue on in the status quo.”
Organizations should start their efforts to improve conditions for women fundraisers by having open conversations to discuss the issues and training.
“I think those are a bit easier for organizations to do as a first step and just getting the conversation started,” Hill says. “They can start modeling the behavior that they want to see from their fundraisers.”
Not an Us-Versus-Them Discussion
Other fundraising experts think the blueprint has touched on a problem in fundraising that needs addressing.
“The issues raised by the code of conduct are all key issues, and they are enormously important when levels of discrimination and harassment are as high as they are,” says Adrian Sargeant, co-director of the Institute for Sustainable Philanthropy.
Taryn R. Gold, vice president of membership and chapter engagement for the Association of Fundraising Professionals, points out that Rogare’s data aligns with its own. “AFP data suggests that women still face significant challenges in the fundraising profession,” she says, noting a 2018 survey showed 44.4 percent of female fundraisers had been harassed, and a 2022 survey showed a $20,000 salary gap between men and women fundraisers.
“Rogare makes a number of impactful suggestions, particularly when it comes to addressing donor accountability and the gender pay gap,” Gold says, emphasizing the importance of salary transparency. “These types of measures, as well as job applicant anonymization, and including women in succession planning, are important for leveling this pay gap in the future.”
Sargeant applauds looking at the problems women fundraisers face and thinks organizations that want to make changes should model the behavior they want to see.
“I would also like to see fundraising leaders develop a set of rules for how fundraisers will engage with donors that protect women,” he says. “That means establishing rules around issues such as where meetings will be held and with whom. They also need to build a culture of trust where anyone experiencing harassment can feel supported and believed. In my own study … some [women expressed] that they had been abused twice: once by the donor and once by their employer.”
Hill notes that some people may find the report, or the idea that women face a problem, controversial, but, she says, that’s not the goal.
“One of the reactions to it is seeing this as an us-versus-them kind of conversation, and it is really not,” Hill says. “The patriarchy doesn’t really do men any favors, either. So it really benefits all to create a more equitable playing field in the fundraising profession.”
Sargeant agrees, noting that the blueprint will be important in starting conversations.
“I think whether people agree with all of the recommendations or not, the real strength here is that we now have something to work from,” he says. “We can now debate more broadly and shape into an actionable campaign that all of us can buy into and be an active part of.”
