For the past few months I've been working with a group of volunteers, usually on weekends unfortunately. This is not a normal group of volunteers -- they are volunteering because they have a certain amount of hours they must volunteer for as apart of one of those cult-ish personal empowerment/leadership seminars. The type that stress upfront payment and embed mob hard-selling skills into their program so that it will continue to exist. Because it is "transformational and life changing, and allows you to become the person you've always wanted to be."
Anyway, this group concluded their time with my nonprofit's house with a multi-tens-of-thousands dollar donation that they put together for us. Not of their own money, although the money received without explicitly asking for a charitable donation receipt for taxes were likely to the tax benefit of the company that runs this program.
As is customary with volunteer events that take place on my property, I gave them a short feel good speech, about how they showed more enthusiasm than most other volunteers I have, and how the goodness of their persons positively influenced my homeless clients and whatnot. It's not wholly untrue; I gave them a horrible but necessary multi-week manual labor project and they did it with a smile on their faces. As a result, they paid for my enrollment in the introductory course of their "cult."
I don't want anything to do with this. But after they kept me on the phone for 30 minutes as I paced around a grocery store, saying they would do whatever it took to have me go because of [flattery], I agreed to. It's free for me and I'm interested in how they operate. It's less than a week long and doesn't conflict with work or school. I'm not the type that can be suckered into paying for the next, longer, more expensive "module" or go around recruiting people for them.
This is where my ethical question arises. I want to use this to my advantage for networking (many of these people are successful individuals who feel stalled in their career), and for people who inevitably move on to the next and more expensive courses, which involve the same type of charitable fundraising. I want go in there with a "look at what I'm doing for charity/poverty/homelessness already, put your money where your mouth is" attitude to the benefit of the nonprofit I created, which is not the nonprofit this last group donated to.
This probably makes me a pretty bad person. But I know many of the individuals in my introductory course will pay for the next one. They're going to search for a charity to raise funds for at some point in this more advanced course. Why shouldn't it be my nonprofit?
I'd be interested in hearing what you smart Hubskiers think about this. Am I morally bankrupt for seriously considering this?
Forget the ethics of it. Completely. What I would consider is the strings that may or may not be attached. Money often comes with a quid pro quo. If you take the money, whom do you owe? Will you sacrifice any autonomy for your organization hat you've worked so hard for? If the answer is no, then I'd try to get the money and the labor. It's not a moral calculation, it's a practical one.
I don't believe there will be strings attached. As far as the company that provides the course, they will get a charitable deduction. The group who raises the money will complete their course and feel good about themselves. They may try to enroll someone else in my organization, but I believe that will be it. Good point. I will definitely watch out for any strings. I'm comfortable seeing this is a practical calculation. Thank you.
I agree with b_b -- What are they going to want in return? In the nonprofit world, especially in this economic climate where funding is scarce, the threat of mission drift due to undue influence of donors is one against which we must be wary.
This is something I've been very cognizant as we start our grant process (we were just awarded our 501(c)3 last week). I know that unrestricted funds are the bees knees, but I have noticed that nearly the sole focus of the management of the nonprofit that is my day job spends 99% of their time acquiescing to grant requirements and reporting, as well as significant time making sure our data looks good as opposed to the outcomes. I've worked under mission drift, and it really sullies the work I'd otherwise find very rewarding. Being in a controlling position for my nonprofit has made me prioritize insuring that it won't occur to a great extent.the threat of mission drift due to undue influence of donors is one against which we must be wary.
We haven't directly lied through our teeth (as far as I'm aware of). We just stretch the truth and manipulate our data. An example of this is a questionnaire we have to fill out when a client is exiting the program. One of the required questions is if they have AIDS or have tested positive for HIV. If so, a secondary required question is if they are currently receiving treatment for it. It is not a required question if they have not tested positive for HIV/AIDS. The issue with this is the data summaries. There's a big chart that shows the answers to these questions for every client within a time constraint. If an answer is not filled in, the unanswered cell is filled red and bold. So, quickly scrolling through this chart you see a bunch of big red boxes that look like mistakes or missing data. IF questions make up about half of all of the total amount of questions. The report that summarizes all questions by completion percentage makes it appear just as bad, because it's just straight percentages of all the questions answered. So if 95% aren't receiving treatment for HIV/AIDS, there's a bar sitting at 5% in between 100% bars, which makes our data look bad so somebody apparently. This way of handling data came from a county-wide meeting of service providers held by the county organization that is in charge of regional database. I don't like harping on degrees or qualifications because I lack them as well, but their data analysts have no background in tech or data at all. They don't seem to understand how fucked or meaningless our data is on the whole, because I cannot leave any questions blank or answered with "Don't Know" or "Refused." If they do, they don't care, because the goal must be to inflate the numbers. This is all in the name of keeping HUD grants coming to my county, because HUD wants to do away with transitional housing and focus on rapid rehousing (Housing First model). It's dumb. Really dumb. Nobody will be able to draw truly meaningful or accurate data from a dataset that's half populated with garbage. It is disingenuous and above all else, a huge waste of time I could be spending face-to-face with my clients. But I guess that's just the way it is.
I maintained an HMIS for three years (not the one you're using, it doesn't exist anymore because none of us wanted to deal with that shit anymore), I know what you're talking about. I think you might have read "lying through your teeth" as more disapproving than I meant it. Telling the people with the money what they need to hear is what you've got to do, so it's what you do. It would amount to the same thing and waste far less time if grants came down to the local level with very loose restrictions along the lines of "use this to do stuff for homeless people" and reporting requirements amounting to letting an accountant check that you did.
The funding crisis is something on which I've done a little research, and it is too real. The paradigm has shifted already, and lots of organizations are scrambling to keep up (and more than a few have just been swept away).
They probably invited you knowing you want their donations. If you're taking advantage of them, you're taking advantage of them in a way they've invited you to. You're fine. Just don't believe them when they tell you the people you really need to meet are in the advanced courses.
I'm not sold on this, although I do think this is plausible, but my gut tells me otherwise. They are required to pledge a certain amount of people whom they "want to help out in the same way they were helped." So I'm pretty cynical about it all. Nonetheless, I hadn't considered this. I'd like to believe it to rationalize taking advantage of the people in my introductory course.They probably invited you knowing you want their donations.
So here's the thing about Landmark - They really help the people who really need help, really annoy the people who really want to be annoyed and kind of bore everyone else. My wife did a week-long Landmark seminar. Her boss (at the time) was probably nine seminars in. She wasn't hurting for the money and it didn't make her a worse person. We even recommended a friend of mine do their weekend thing. His reaction? "Boy, there sure are a lot of people way more fucked up than I am." Yup, perfect. Glad you got what you needed out of it. Glad you don't think you need more. Happy you had the opportunity, happy you've decided you've drunk your fill. Did Landmark need the money? Nope. Was it the cheapest way to get him out of his self-destructive rut? Probably not, but it worked. It sounds like you have no need for Landmark. After a week, you will have determined conclusively that you have no need for Landmark. However, the people who sent you to Landmark will feel all warm'n'fuzzy about it, which will make them that much more likely to send more money your way in the future. Welcome to Mindhead.