New Rogare project to create concepts and tools for resolving ethical dilemmas in fundraising for schools

• Project to be conducted among school fundraisers in Australia and New Zealand
• A bespoke normative lens of school fundraising ethics is needed, as lenses of ethics devised for mainstream fundraising do not map directly onto the dilemmas faced by school fundraisers
• A major ethical concern for school fundraisers is donor dominance by parents
• A suite of toolkits, guidance and decision-making frameworks to be made freely available to the fundraising profession by July 2025
• While the work is based in Australia and New Zealand, the ideas and outputs will be applicable in many other countries, particularly English-speaking countries

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The international fundraising think tank Rogare has begun a new project to:

• identify the ethical issues, challenges and dilemmas specific to school fundraising
• adapt the ideas, theories and frameworks of professional fundraising ethics to solve these dilemmas
• devise new ways to do this if the existing resources are not up to the job.

The project – which aims to be completed in July 2025 – will be conducted in three phases in Australia and New Zealand.

Phase 1– This first phase has been to review current thinking on secondary educational ethics to identify similarities and differences with mainstream charity fundraising ethics, and make some preliminary recommendations for the further development of an ethics of fundraising for schools.

Initial thinking from Phase 1 suggests that:

• Lenses of ethics devised for mainstream fundraising – such as Trustism, Donorcentrism and Right-Balancing Fundraising Ethics – do not map directly on to the dilemmas faced by school fundraisers. Instead, bespoke normative lenses of school fundraising ethics are needed.
• Whereas mainstream charity fundraisers cite transgressions of donors’ rights as their principal ethical concerns; anecdotal evidence suggests a major ethical concern for school fundraisers is donor dominance, such as influencing student enrollments, selections or outcomes.
• One possible lens of school fundraising ethics (adapted from Rights Balancing Fundraising Ethics) is:
• Fundraising is ethical when it balances the duty of fundraisers to ask parents to provide support to ensure theirs and others’ children get the best education they can, with those donors’ needs and wants, such that those donors do not compromise that education by exerting undue influence* over how that education is provided.
• *such as by influencing student enrolment, student selection for extra-curricular activities, gaining privileged access to the best teachers, etc.

However, this is only an interim idea and may well be revised and adapted during Phase 2 (see below).

These ideas will be presented by Rogare director Ian MacQuillin at the Educate Plus conference in Perth from 10-13 September 2024. Educate Plus is the professional membership body for school advancement/fundraising professionals in Australia and New Zealand.

Phase 2 – In the second phase, a working group comprising Australian and New Zealand school fundraisers will collate and catalogue a compendium of the types of ethical dilemmas encountered in fundraising at and for schools. Educate Plus will also assist with this task by sending a survey to hundreds of their members in Australia and New Zealand, seeking to uncover not only the types of ethical dilemmas they encounter, but also what would facilitate resolving these dilemmas.

Armed with this information, the project team will then devise the tools, guidance, and frameworks for resolving ethical dilemmas encountered in school fundraising. These will then be made feely available to the fundraising profession by July 2025.

The working group so far comprises (with others TBC):

• Angela Coe , Diocesan School for Girls (NZ)
• Anna Beattie , The Hutchins School (Aus)
• Dan Martin , St Aloysius College (Aus)
• Clive Pedley Giving Architects (NZ).

Phase 3 will commence during the Southern winter/Northern summer of 2025. This will consider how these ideas relate to, and/or may need to be adapted to, the needs of fundraising for Māori, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander education. We will be seeking engagement and input from these communities in due course.

This project is being supported by New Zealand fundraising consultancy and Rogare Associate Member Giving Architects, along with Precision Fundraising in Australia.

Giving Architects’ director and chief executive Clive Pedley says:

“We have been working in school fundraising environments in New Zealand and Australia for over 20 years. As opportunities for the role of giving and philanthropy in all its forms have increased, so have the demands of leaders, staff and volunteers to traverse a range of situations. This can lead to situations where there are genuine concerns about the rights and obligations of different stakeholders. Well beyond determining right and wrong, legal or otherwise, there is a need to provide an informed and suitable framework and toolkit to help those involved make ethical decisions at critical moments.

Clive continues: “We have long admired the work of Rogare, Ian and the international network of leading fundraising practitioners who get involved in this work. It is a privilege to support this initiative. It will break new ground in the awareness and understanding of ethical fundraising in schools in Australia and New Zealand.

“Giving Architects looks forward to contributing to this important work, knowing it will freely deliver practical assistance across the Australasian education network.”

Rogare’s director Ian MacQuillin MCIOF(Dip) says:

“One challenge of this project was to ensure that any ideas we came up with to help school fundraisers resolve ethical dilemmas were also compatible with and complement the principles of the ethics of education.

“A key tenet of educational ethics is that the interests of the student should always come first, but that creates and ethical tension between the interests of any individual student and the rest of their class. This is something school fundraising needs to consider.

“It’s also been said that the ‘central dilemma’ in education ethics is the conflict between teachers – who want to do what’s best for students; and administrators who want to ensure the school runs according to standards and targets. This can lead to pressure on teachers to act unethically, for example to inflate grades.

“So a further consideration is whether school fundraisers are seen by teachers as part of the school administration system.

“Yet ?it is possible that there will be ethical dilemmas that pit fundraisers against the administrators and the system. These may not be dilemmas that directly involve teachers, but teachers may still be interested parties to the outcome.”

Ian adds that while the work is being conducted in the context of Australian and New Zealand schools, the principles and ideas involved, and final outputs, will almost certainly be applicable in many other countries, particularly English-speaking countries. “This work will form the foundation for a widespread understanding of the ethics of fundraising for schools,” he says.

This is the second major project that Rogare has conducted outside the predominant national fundraising hubs of USA and UK – after the work with AFP Canada on the Canadian Fundraising Narrative.

Rogare would like to thank this projects’ supporters, Giving Architects and Precision Fundraising for facilitating this valuable and, we believe, groundbreaking work.

Rogare’s work, is freely-available to fundraisers thanks to the support of our Associate Members: Ask Direct, GoalBusters, Giving Architects, and ST (Stephen Thomas) Ltd.