The purpose of non-profit organizations is to improve welfare of the members of society and alleviate them from poverty when disasters occur. However there have been instances where the corporations have not performed their duties up to the standards. Weinsten was a concerned person on how these organizations perform their fundraising where money is collected from the well wishers yet poorly accounted for and used for personal gains of the officials (Lindley, 2015). It is against the public duty to engage in such malpractices and need to be addressed appropriately. There is a case reported in the media where Red Cross, one of the re-known non-profit organization worldwide, raised almost half a billion dollars which was meant for the casualties of Haiti earthquake but unfortunately the money was used for other purposes. Ethical fundraising involves respecting the donor’s restrictions, providing timely reports to the donors regarding progress of the projects and transparency in the use of funds for instance the staff involved. Such practices were not followed by the Red Cross management where it could not provide reports on the use of the funds. The purpose of the project was to create permanent homes for the homeless as a result of the earthquake and the slogan was “A Better Life in My Neighborhood.” That is what motivated the public to contribute a lot of funds as well as materials items to the families. In fact the involvement of celebrities in the exercise also played a key role in raising the funds. However the management could not provide data regarding the homes built and those in the progress making the press to visit the sites proposed only to find no new developments made (Geever, 2014). Lack of ethics in acts such as these destroys the image of organization and makes definition of humanity lose meaning where we should not use other people suffering to benefit us.
ReferencesLindley, D. (2015). Fundraising Ethics Dos and Don'ts. Successful Fundraising, 23(2), 7-7.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/sfr.30035Geever, J. (2014). Ethics and the nonprofit board of directors. New Directions For Philanthropic Fundraising, 1994(6), 63-73.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/pf.41219940607
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