Do You Know How to Navigate in the Gray Area?
I recently published a post about how City of Hope plans to host a special fundraising event at odds with the organization's mission. Most readers who responded to a poll at the end of the post felt the event is inappropriate with many even finding the event unethical.
I'm comforted to know that over three-quarters of the respondents feel the same way as I do about the City of Hope event. However, some of the comments I've received on this blog site, on LinkedIn, and via email concern me a bit.
Perhaps the comments are a result of how I worded the post or phrased the poll responses. Some people seem to be under the impression that one's actions are either purely ethical or purely unethical. In certain cases, those folks would be correct. Some actions are clearly ethical or not. Stealing money from Girl Scouts selling cookies (this really happened) is clearly unethical.
However, not all situations are black and white, ethical or unethical.
While the legality or illegality of an action is certainly a guideline, such as the theft incident I just described, something can be unethical without being illegal. S ome situations in which we find ourselves put us into a gray area. The most challenging ethical dilemmas often involve situations that are not black and white. If they didn't, they really wouldn't be dilemmas, would they?
When considering the possible, multiple responses to a situation, we will often find some alternatives are more ethical while some are less ethical. In the case of City of Hope, the organization could choose to continue to host its "Let Them Eat Cake" event without any changes although many readers found it at odds with the nonprofit's mission and, therefore, unethical. Alternatively, the organization could choose not do any event.
However, the organization has other options. For example, City of Hope can run its cake event but offer healthy alternatives and educational material as well. Or, the organization could host a different event like the Healthy Chef Competition in Vancouver, Canada that Rory Green, a development professional and blogger, told me about.
Again, some alternative courses of action are more ethical or less ethical than others. The objective should be to always choose the best option, make the best decision.
The most challenging ethical dilemmas of all, however, do not have any good, ethical solution. They're no-win situations. Think of the novel/movie Sophie's Choice or the "Kobayashi Maru" test from the film Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Even in these no-win situations, we must cope as best as we can to be the best we can.
As those who work in the nonprofit sector, we must understand that our greatest asset is the trust of the public. The more trust people have in charities, the more likely they are to donate. And, with greater trust comes larger contributions.