When deliberation is not possible: Moral dilemmas in fundraising

Abstract

<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p>Extant literature highlights the importance of ethical fundraising, exacerbated by recent increased public attention and media criticism. Arguably this increased attention calls for a deeper examination and understanding of the types of moral scenarios and dilemmas fundraisers encounter. Furthermore, fundraisers are often under intense time pressure to solve the dilemma and thus require quick, on‐the‐spot decisions formulated from intuition. Currently there are limited resources and training to help fundraisers implement ethical fundraising in their work; additionally, there is negligible education or skills training to help guide them in scenarios requiring intuition. Moreover, current literature fails to examine what these situations entail and how fundraisers might use intuition to help solve ethical fundraising dilemmas. Fundraising dilemmas requiring the use of moral intuition are currently unexplored in the academic literature. Therefore this research identifies the kinds of moral dilemmas that require intuitive responses from fundraisers and examines how they are solved. Furthermore, we identify how the dilemmas align with moral foundations theory, and determine if they require intuitive responses. Semi‐structured interviews of fundraising experts were used to obtain detailed descriptions of a variety of moral dilemma situations that required intuitive responses. Using thematic analysis the moral dilemma scenarios were categorised into theoretical and practical themes. Theoretical themed results revealed dilemmas most often were the result of having to choose a response that aligned with two conflicting moral foundations: ingroup/loyalty and harm/care. The findings suggest that when fundraisers must make quick, intuitive decisions, they are often choosing between caring for an individual and demonstrating loyalty to their organisation. Furthermore, the results related to practical themes identified that dilemmas can also be categorised as involving certain types of fundraising activity and management decisions; such as major gifts, direct mail, and corporate fundraising, for example. The findings were used to create the first academic and practitioner moral dilemma measure that uses practical, applicable moral dilemmas to measure moral intuition amongst fundraisers. Our moral dilemma measure aligns responses with relevant categories of the moral foundations theory and can be used in further research. This research is original in that it is the first study to explore moral dilemmas requiring moral intuition within the population of fundraisers. Through obtaining tangible, realistic moral dilemma scenarios fundraisers encounter in the workplace, research can begin to look more closely at how fundraisers can be helped to solve dilemmas as part of their professional duties.</jats:p>