Nonprofit ethics sliding?

This is discouraging. A National Nonprofit Ethics Survey really makes the nonprofit sector look bad. (As reported in the Chronicle of Philanthropy: Ethical Standards Erode at Nonprofit Groups, Study Finds). Among the findings:

• 55% of nonprofit employees observed one or more acts of misconduct in the previous year.
  
• 24% of nonprofit employees observed their co-workers putting their own interests above those of the organization.
  
• 21% observed managers or executives lying to employees.
  
• 19% reported that they had seen abusive behavior or that they had seen co-workers misreporting the number of hours they had worked.
  
• 19% of nonprofit employees believe that their organizations have become less ethical in the past five years.
  

To the extent that the survey reflects reality, this trend hurts the entire nonprofit sector -- far more than the negative impact of the unethical behaviors themselves. Trust is hard to come by in a context where many donors fear their charitable dollars are being squandered.

But the organizations that will be hurt the worst will be those that fail ethically: Donors will find you out. They'll be slow to forgive and quick to advise others to feel the same way. And they'll haunt you for years, maybe decades, even after you get your act together.

The best thing you can do: Have a zero-tolerance policy toward ethics violations. Don't let anything slide.

The 2007 National Nonprofit Ethics Survey is available for download (PDF).

Technorati Tags: ethics, npethics

Comments

[Wanda]

I work for a nonprofit organization that treats employee's different only on the basis of whether the ED likes them. For one they hire without schooling or experience, pay for and send her to a college course on Business English during work time, because she doesn't capitalize names and addresses, and can't edit documents. Then after a year, they find out that she doesn't have her high school diploma, so they help her study and pass the GED.

While another long time employee who has come up with and implemented various ideas and tools to help in the service. But since the ED doesn't like her, she doesn't get any special consideration.

The ED does not care about the service provided, every time something is brought up, the person bringing it up gets in trouble rather than trying to fix the problem.

It amazes me how a nonprofit organization that gets funding from taxpayers are allowed to misuse the money and resources to their hearts content.

[Sam Davis]

It's not really surprising that nonprofit ethics are in a sorry state. Generally, there is what one might call an ethics crisis throughout American society.

Various sociological and cultural phenomenon play into this, but perhaps the most important, in my opinion, is the general failure to learn from history, from the past.

Civilizations have been most successful when abiding by some well-known ethical consensus, a kind of "basic law" if you will, which a majority choose to follow.

Times when such conditions have flourished include the reign of King Ashoka in ancient India, a period virtually unknown to most Westerners, as well as several dynastic periods in ancient China. It might be noted that these were generally characterized by religious pluralism as well as respect for individuals on the part of rulers. Ashoka in particular stands out as a model leader.

In the West, such environments have existed at various times, including the rule of the judges in early Israel, Athens during its classical heyday, and at least the first 150 years of the American federal republic.

A general cure for this malady will not come about through social engineering but through voluntary awakening by many individuals that changes need to be made, beginning in our own daily lives.