Course overview

There are two reasons why practising ethics in fundraising might turn out to be harder than you think it is. First, because so often ethics is reduced to simply complying with the code, even though the ethics of any profession can never simply be reduced to a few provisions in a code of practice. And second, because there have been few ideas and frameworks developed specifically to help fundraisers resolve the ethical dilemmas they’ll encounter in their jobs.

This interactive course will introduce delegates to the theories, ‘lenses’ and frameworks developed at Rogare – The Fundraising Think Tank, and practise using these to resolve real-life ethical dilemmas in fundraising. In doing so, it will demonstrate how an understanding of professional ethics can enhance compliance with the code of practice.

We’ll then move on to consider further ethical issues, including:

• Appropriate ways to ‘frame’ beneficiaries in fundraising materials
• Ethical use of AI
• Ethics of refusing donations.

This course will enhance fundraisers’ ethical literacy by introducing you to the tools, ideas, and frameworks you'll need to resolve the ethical dilemmas you’ll encounter in your professional practice, dilemmas that for the most part can’t be sorted simply be referring to a code of practice. It will also give you the confidence to justify your ethical decisions to stakeholders who might be critical of them; and to help fundraisers articulate the best ethical advocacy of fundraising practices and the fundraising profession.

What you'll learn

• Gain a basic knowledge and understanding of ethical theory to better contextualise ethical issues in fundraising
• Understand what an ethical dilemma in fundraising is and identify and describe such ethical dilemmas
• Identify and describe different normative ‘lenses’ of fundraising ethics and understand how to apply these in professional practice
• Apply these ethical lenses to actual ethical dilemmas in fundraising using a bespoke decision-making framework
• Make better ethical justifications for the actions they choose to take, or choose not to take, to the media, board, donors and other stakeholders
• Understand the relationship between ethics and codes of practice, and how to apply this knowledge to make ethical decisions; and to critique codes of practice from an ethical perspective.

Targeted skills

• Ethical literacy
• Critical thinking and reasoning
• Advocacy

Who is this course for?

This course is for anyone, in any role, at any stage of their career, who wants to improve their understanding of the ethics of fundraising and enhance their ethical literacy.

Delivery

2 x 3hr sessions via Zoom.

This session won’t explore

This session won’t be a ‘surgery’ for fundraisers to bring their ethical problems and expect to get a solution.

This is a space that welcomes thoughtful and constructive discussion about fundraising practices, with a focus on learning and improvement, rather than personal complaints.

While the course will touch on the issues of power and privilege and the ideas promoted by the Community-Centric Fundraising movement, this will not be a major focus (not because they are not important, but because we can’t cover everything).

Participant level

Intermediate, Advanced

Prerequisite knowledge

Students should have a foundational competence and understanding of fundraising practices and processes. In other words, they should know how to do their jobs competently.

No prior knowledge of ethics is required.

Meet the facilitator

Read Ian MacQuillin's bio (PDF).

Guidelines for enrollment

Make sure you have a login for the FIA Learning Hub. Click "Sign In" or "Forgot Password" if needed.

You can enrol a staff member if they already have a login.

If you require assistance, please email training@fia.org.au.

CFRE

Full participation in Fundraising ethics – going beyond the code to resolve ethical dilemmas and why doing that might be harder than you think is applicable for up to 2.25 continuing education points in Category 1. B – Education of the CFRE International application for initial certification and/or recertification.

FIA Code

This course relates to the following aspects of the FIA Code of Conduct:

Ethical conduct (3.0). The enhanced ethical literacy this course will bring will allow students to better critically reflect on the stipulations contained in this section, and then how to justify the decisions they make. For example, how “open” (s3.6) should a fundraiser be about how funds are raised, especially in the use of AI?

Conduct towards donors (4.0). The course looks in detail at the ethics of the relationships that fundraisers build with donors and what duties fundraisers have to donors; but it also explores problems and challenges these ethics throw up.
The course will also consider the ethics of refusing donations, and so will also enhance the understanding an application of the code’s sections (4.8 and 4.9) relating to this issue.

Conduct towards beneficiaries (5.0). The course will specifically cover the ethics of beneficiary framing.

Conduct in supplier relationships (6.0). Enhancing fundraisers’ ethical literacy through this course will empower and enable them to have better expectations of the ethical requirements of suppliers and how to hold them accountable for those ethical requirements.