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NOTES FOR THE REFLECTIVE PRACTITIONER

Volume Twelve, Number Five (June 2011)

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"What we have loved, others will love, and we will teach them how."

(W. Wordsworth, from "The Prelude")

NOTES FROM READERS

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A version of this brief essay will be published in upcoming issue of Philanthropy Journal, as part of a series on ethics in fundraising.

“I have the privilege in teaching ethics and in my role as chair of the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP) Ethics Committee to confer with many fellow fundraising professionals about the ethical dilemmas they face in their work. Often, however, my conclusion is that when we get to an ethical dilemma - whether it concerns donor intent, so-called “tainted money,” or conflicts of interest - it is often too late for the sorts of conversations we should be having all the time about the values we espouse as professionals and organizations, the ways those values might support or come into conflict with our behavior, and how we might work together to live up to our highest values and commitments.

AFP has recently launched its new Ethics Assessment Inventory (EAI) ©, an on-line tool that enables professional fundraisers to review their ethical values and to compare them to the organizations they serve. It is a helpful step in giving fundraisers a resource for professional and personal reflection on ethical values. But it also begs the question of where and how fundraising professionals and their organizational colleagues might find the help they need to continue to grow in ethical understanding and maturity.

How do we learn to talk together about ethics in our profession and organizations? Here are a few concrete strategies we might pursue:

Craft an organizational (or departmental) ethics statement

Crafting an organizational ethics statement can be valuable, both as a finished document and for the process of reflection and collaboration that its creation occasions.

How do we view the links between our organization’s mission and the values of potential donors? How do we balance the dynamics of loyalty and honesty? What values do we espouse in situations where there might be the appearance of impropriety? How well do our gift acceptance policies and practices reflect our community values?

We might begin by bringing together staff and board members to ask what we value as an organization, i.e., to reflect on our common values and relationships; to explore how and whether (or not) our moral activity is grounded in our common values; and then to consider the means by which we are accountable to various publics for our common values and moral activity. Are we an organization with integrity?

Our conversations would provide important material for an organizational ethics statement and also would help create an organizational culture in which talking about ethics is encouraged and expected. An ethics statement—aimed at describing and sustaining an organization with integrity provides a forum for considering the cases where our missions and core values don't always get practiced in our day-to-day lives. Independent Sector offers a template for such an organizational code of ethics (resources).

Administrative case rounds

I have long been intrigued by Stanley Reiser's concept of administrative case rounds as a strategy for using the discussion of specific situations in our organizations as opportunities to examine the links between organizational values and practices. Adapted from the concept of medical case rounds, where a case is presented to a group of doctors and nurses from various specialties for discussion, administrative case rounds bring together diverse administrative, program, and board constituencies for discussions of cases that are of some common concern.

For example, I once used our development office stewardship plans and practices as a common theme for cross-departmental conversations. Instead of bringing together just the usual suspects (from the development staff), we also invited representatives from the President's office, the Dean of Students office, and the admissions office, to join in a conversation about what stewardship means for our college. They were fascinating conversations that resulted in both a better stewardship plan and a better sense across our campus of how stewardship is part of our common work. Perhaps the best outcome was the off-hand comment from one member of the discussion group that she now understood how much of her job involved stewardship. We had a convert.

For more about administrative case rounds, see Reiser's article "The Ethical Life of Health Care Organizations," (in the Hastings Center Report, November-December 1994, pp. 28-35).

Create clearness committees

I first learned about the concept of "the clearness committee" when I was involved in a discernment process to consider whether I had a calling for the ministry. Since then, I have thought many times how valuable that process was for me and what a challenge it provides to our normal ways of thinking through personal and common issues in our organizations.

Recently, Parker Palmer has suggested that "the clearness committee" concept, adapted from the Quaker tradition, might have merit for our busy lives in organizations. In The Courage to Teach: A Guide for Reflection and Renewal, (Jossey-Bass, 1999), Palmer and co-author, Rachel C. Livsey, propose the clearness committee as a communal approach to discernment.

The basic premise is this: A small of people come together to help an individual discover (discern) the answer to a dilemma through questions that help the individual find the inner voice of truth that often offers the best guidance and power for dealing with our problems. The process is full of silence and honest, open questions. It is not an advice or brainstorming session. It is not a cure-all. But it can be a powerful way to rally the strength of community in the pursuit of wisdom—an important outcome in itself!

The Livsey/Palmer guide is important reading—in addition to the clearness committee "rules" and description, it also offers various other ideas and disciplines for helping us and our colleagues prepare for reflection.

With these simple strategies, we begin to create communities of moral discourse in our professional associations and nonprofit organizations. In other words, we learn to talk together about ethics. Such conversations may not prevent ethical dilemmas, but they surely will prepare us to place them in context and face them with resolve and maturity.”

>>Institutional codes>Resources for your reflective practice>Yes>Subscription information>Topics for the next issue (August 2011) ................
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