Setting the Record Straight about Jimmy LaRose

Jimmy LaRose, founder of the Inside Charity website and co-founder of the National Association of Nonprofit Organizations & Executives, continues to be a controversial figure in the nonprofit sector. However, I have refrained from addressing his statements that trouble me.

Until now.

LaRose recently copied portions of one of my recent blog posts, altered their intention, and purposely misattributed them to someone else in an article he wrote attacking the Association of Fundraising Professionals.

When I confronted him with what he had done, he admitted to and defended his actions. Furthermore, he refused to apologize or delete the article at issue. In his last email to me, despite the fact that I never mentioned NANOE in my communications to him, he wrote, “NANOE’s Board of Directors has directed our staff to forward all your communications to counsel.” Do you think he might have sent me that message in an attempt to intimidate and silence me?

Well, you deserve the truth. Therefore, I will not be silent.

I published my blog post “Are Donors the Hidden Enemies of Charities?” on April 16, 2018. On May 6, 2018, the LaRose article “Is There a Secret Reason AFP (Association of Fundraising Professionals) Is Hating On Donors?” appeared at Inside Charity.

In my post, I reported on the findings of The Harris Poll survey report conducted for AFP and The Chronicle of Philanthropy. While I recognized that most donors are good people, I did point out that some donors do bad things. The Harris survey found that 25 percent of women and 7 percent of men, who are members of AFP and who were surveyed, report having been the victim of sexual harassment. In the cases cited, 65 percent of the perpetrators were donors.

In his article, LaRose attempted to discredit the survey report though he offered no evidence of his own.

Neither AFP nor I are demonizing all donors. We are simply giving voice to the survey respondents who have said that donors sexually harassed them. This is a real problem that some of our fellow fundraising professionals have faced. It’s something that we should not ignore.

Toward that end, I suggested some actions that individual nonprofit organizations should take:

1.  Have the organization’s board adopt a sexual harassment policy. If a policy already exists, it should be reviewed with an eye toward improving it. The policy should define sexual harassment (regardless of the source), map the reporting process, and explain the consequences of harassment. The policy should also make it clear that no donation is worth mental or physical harm to staff or volunteers; people should be clearly valued more than money.

2.  The senior management team or board of the organizations should set policies regarding meetings with prospects and donors. The policy should include answers to several questions including:

• Where is it appropriate to meet with a prospect or donor?
• When should more than one person from the organization meet with a prospect or donor at the same time?
• When dining out with a prospect or donor, who should pick-up the check?
• What prospect or donor behaviors should not be tolerated?
• How should misbehavior be treated in the moment and following an incident?

3.  Procedures should be adopted for providing feedback to prospects or donors who misbehave so that they understand that their missteps are inappropriate and unacceptable.

4.  Staff and volunteers (including board members) should be provided with the policies and trained to ensure they understand all of the provisions of the policies

5.  As part of training, make all staff and volunteers aware of the problem. For example, share the Harris Polling report with them along with a printed copy of the organization’s sexual harassment policies.

6.  Re-assure staff and volunteers that they will be fully supported, and that they will not be penalized or lose their jobs for filing a legitimate complaint.

In LaRose’s article, he lifted the questions I asked in item two above. He then mislead his readers when he introduced the questions by writing, “In response to The Chronicle of Philanthropy’s ‘poll’ AFP’s IDEA Committee (Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Access) has just announced another set of provisions they’re going to burden you with after they determine the proper answers to the following questions.”

To the best of my knowledge, the AFP IDEA Committee has not adopted my questions to guide its discussions. The questions I posed were clearly mine and mine alone. As I stated in my post, the questions are just some that should be addressed as nonprofit organizations discuss their own policies and procedures. I did not ask AFP to impose such a requirement on nonprofit organizations. It would have been foolish to do so because AFP has no mechanism for such an imposition even if it wanted to issue such a mandate.

By twisting the intent of my words and by providing incorrect attribution, LaRose has erected a straw-man.

LaRose writes:

Are Donors the Hidden Enemies of Charities?

Donors are not usually the enemies of nonprofit organizations. Instead, they are the friends who provide much needed resources allowing charities to save lives and enhance the quality of those lives.

However, some donors at some times do become the enemy of the good. They behave in ways that humiliate and, at times, even endanger those with less power. That’s one of the disturbing findings of a new survey report sponsored by the Association of Fundraising Professionals and The Chronicle of Philanthropy and produced by Harris Polling.

Among nonprofit professionals surveyed, 25 percent of women and 7 percent of men say they have been sexually harassed. Of the harassment incidents cited, 65 percent of the perpetrators were donors with the balance being colleagues, work supervisors, and organization executives. Harassers are most often men (96 percent). The median number of sexual harassment occurrences personally experienced by survey respondents is three (which is why some of the statistics in the report add up the way they do).

“Harassment is always about power, so the results here might indicate that the real power in these organizations rests with the donors,” Jerry Carbo, a professor at Shippensburg University who served on a federal committee studying harassment in the workplace in 2015 and 2016, told The Chronicle. “I would normally expect to see a much higher response rate for supervisors.”

The most common types of sexual harassment experienced in the fundraising profession include: inappropriate comments of a sexual nature (80 percent), unwelcome sexual advances and requests for sexual favors (62 percent), and unwanted touching or physical contact (55 percent).

Mike Geiger, MBA, CPA, President and CEO of AFP, commented on the alarming findings:

The number of cases involving donors is eye-opening and points to a unique and very troubling situation within the profession. As we look at how to proceed with the data from the survey and begin developing anti-harassment education and training for fundraisers and others in the charitable sector, we will have a special focus on the all-important donor-fundraiser relationship. We know most donors have only the best interest of the cause at heart, but our message will be clear: no donation and no donor is worth taking away an individual’s respect and self-worth and turning a blind eye to harassment.”

Sadly, many nonprofit organizations fail to take appropriate action when they receive reports of sexual harassment, regardless of whether the perpetrators were donors or fellow staff. Consider the following:

Update: Is the Nonprofit Sector Ignoring the #TimesUp Movement?

I’m surprised. You might be, too.

At the end of last month, I published the post “#TimesUp Alert: Nonprofit Organizations are Not Immune.” The post is one of my least read articles so far this year. By comparison, several old posts that I have not promoted for a long time have attracted far more readers during the past week. Given the seriousness of workplace sexual harassment and assault, I am disappointed that my post on the subject has not received more attention.

Please don’t misunderstand me. I’m not whining. I’m simply concerned that an important, timely issue facing the nonprofit sector is apparently of little interest to fundraising professionals and nonprofit managers.

Why do you think my previous #TimesUp post has attracted so few readers?

It could be that folks do not believe it’s really a significant issue for the nonprofit sector; after all, we do good so we must be good. Or, it could be that nonprofit professionals don’t believe they have the power to bring change to their organizations, so they don’t bother thinking about it. Or, it could be something else. What do you think?

Interestingly, the percentage of post readers who responded to my one-question anonymous survey was above average. While the broader universe of potential readers might not have been interested in the article, those who did read the piece were highly engaged.

The poll was admittedly unscientific. Nevertheless, I owe it to those who responded to share the results:

#TimesUp Alert: Nonprofit Organizations are Not Immune

The nonprofit and philanthropic communities are not immune. We must face a sad truth: Sexual harassment and assault do not exist exclusively in Hollywood or even just the broader for-profit sector. The problems also fester in the nonprofit and philanthropic sphere. The issue is so serious for the nonprofit sector that the Association of Fundraising Professionals has recently issued a clear statement and planned steps to address the situation.

The victims of Harvey Weinstein made the world aware, in 2017, of the Hollywood movie mogul’s alleged despicable acts of sexual harassment and assault. The revelations led to the #MeToo social media movement that put the spotlight on other alleged perpetrators in the film and other industries.

As the year ended, the #MeToo movement evolved into the #TimesUp initiative. Megan Garber, writing in The Atlantic, described the transition this way:

The simple shift in hashtag, #MeToo to #TimesUp, is telling: While the former has, thus far, largely emphasized the personal and the anecdotal, #TimesUp — objective in subject, inclusive of verb, suggestive of action — embraces the political. It attempts to expand the fight against sexual harassment, and the workplace inequality that has allowed it to flourish for so long, beyond the realm of the individual story, the individual reality.”

The #TimesUp Legal Defense Fund, part of the new movement, set an initial $15 million goal, now $22 million. As of this writing, over $21 million has been raised from nearly 20,000 donors through GoFundMe.

Within the nonprofit sector, it’s easy for us to have a false sense of comfort. Some may believe others are addressing the problem adequately. Others may believe the problem is not that widespread among nonprofits because they are inherently good because they do good.

Unfortunately, there is ample anecdotal and statistical evidence demonstrating that the nonprofit sector faces the same situation as the rest of society when it comes to sexual exploitation, harassment, and assault. Wherever some people hold power over others, the door is open to sexual harassment and assault.

Consider just a few examples:

The Presidents Club. Over the years, this organization has raised over 20 million British pounds for various children’s charities in the UK. The cornerstone fundraising activity of this UK-based charity has been an annual gala for over 300 figures from British business, finance, and politics. On January 18, the group gathered at the prestigious Dorchester Hotel in London where they were joined by 130 hostesses.

A Financial Times investigative report found:

All of the women were told to wear skimpy black outfits with matching underwear and high heels. At an after-party many hostesses — some of them students earning extra cash — were groped, sexually harassed and propositioned.”

I can’t do this story justice. Please take a few moments to read the full Financial Times article. It’s stunning. Since the report was published, The Presidents Club has ceased operations.

Oxfam. Large international charities are not immune to scandal either. Oxfam officials this month released the findings of an internal investigation that found its country director for Haiti hired “prostitutes” during a relief mission in 2011. Furthermore, in 2016 and 2017, Oxfam dealt with 87 sexual exploitation cases as well as sexual harassment or assault of staff, according to a report in Devex. While the Haiti country director has resigned and Oxfam has taken steps to avoid exploitation and harassment in the future, the negative public relations and philanthropic fallout have been significant.

Humane Society of the United States. Wayne Pacelle, Chief Executive Officer of the Humane Society, resigned following sexual harassment charges filed against him, according to The New York Times. While Pacelle maintains his innocence, he also faced allegations of sexual relationships with subordinates, donors, and volunteers going back years.

While the anecdotes are alarming, they don’t really help us understand how vast the problem is. So, let’s look at the numbers. In the USA, nearly 1200 sexual-harassment claims were filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission against nonprofit organizations between 1995 and 2016, according to a report in The Chronicle of Philanthropy. While a significant number, it likely only reflects a modest percentage of actual cases, most of which go unreported or are only reported internally.