Dear Ethicist,

With the end of the year approaching, I’ve been considering a few resolutions for the New Year. One of my goals is to be more up to date on ethical practices for fundraising. But where do I start?

Yours truly,

Wanting to Start the Year Off Resolutely

Dear Resolutely,

It’s a great goal to start the New Year with an ethical focus. There are three documents that will help you with this resolution:

• Your own organizational code of ethics
  • It’s essential to understand the ethics of your organization. What are the values that drive your mission? Do your own personal ethics align with your organization?
• The Donor Bill of Rights
  • The donor’s rights are important as we consider ethics in prospect development.
• Apra’s Principles of Ethics and Compliance
  • Prospect development professionals must balance a constituent’s right to privacy with the needs of their organizations to collect, analyze, record and disseminate information. These principles help guide our work.

While these three documents can help kickstart this resolution, there are other resources that may be helpful:

• Ask the Ethicist Archive on Connections: Here you will find questions on specific topics like diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), artificial intelligence, data sharing, data minimization, prospecting, managing change and more.
• DEI Data Guide: The purpose of this guide is to serve as a resource for best practices in the ethical collection, storage and usage of DEI data.
• Ethics Tool Kit: This includes information on ethics in social media, how to collect and store information and how to share data.
• Due Diligence Toolkit: This toolkit will help you formulate your own due diligence policy and provides resources on how to conduct due diligence on prospective and/or current donors.
• Vendor Due Diligence Toolkit: This toolkit is designed to help prospect development professionals understand their role in vendor due diligence. It offers best practices and can augment any institutional policy regarding vendor engagement and procurement.

Good luck with your resolution!

Sincerely,

The Ethicist