logo
    • Magazine
    • Membership
    • Donate
  • Racial Justice
  • Economic Justice
    • Collections
  • Climate Justice
  • Health Justice
  • Leadership
  • CONTENT TYPES
  • Subscribe
  • Webinars
    • Upcoming Webinars
    • Complimentary Webinars
    • Premium On-Demand Webinars
  • Membership
  • Submissions

The Nonprofit Ethicist | A Tote Bag Raises Ethical Questions

Woods Bowman
April 2, 2010
Share
Tweet
Share
Email
Print

NPQ's The Ethicist

Dear Nonprofit Ethicist,

Our organization often offers premiums and gifts for donations. The organization’s programs and mission serve small farmers in Central America and encourage sustainable farming and marketing practices, so we strive to offer gifts that are Fair Trade–certified and organic. A staffer just purchased tote bags for our end-of-year premium. The tote bags, he was told, are “all natural” and eco-friendly. But in fact, the bags were made in China, with no attention to fair labor sourcing and do not come close to representing our values of environmental, social, and economic sustainability. Many of the organization’s supporters are informed consumers. Our development staff members suggested that we remove the “Made in China” tag from the bags. It is not illegal, because we don’t resell these totes but give them as gifts in return for donations to our organization. But senior staff thought this was unethical. Our organization is committed to transparency and honesty. Removing the tags, we thought, was dishonest and we decided to keep them and face the consequences. We hope that supporters who are disappointed by the tag will understand. Did we do the right thing?

Second Thoughts

Dear Second Thoughts,

Sign up for our free newsletters

Subscribe to NPQ's newsletters to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

By signing up, you agree to our privacy policy and terms of use, and to receive messages from NPQ and our partners.

No question: you were right. Your staffer deserves to be reprimanded but, unless you had written vetting protocols in place at the time of the tote purchase, don’t write up the staff member, because the entire organization shares the blame. And if you do not have vetting protocols, develop them posthaste, put them in writing, and have the board adopt them as official policy. You may even turn this snafu to your advantage by sending a letter to your supporters trumpeting your new protocols.

Woods Bowman is a professor of public service management at DePaul University.

 

Write to the Ethicist with your query. You may purchase a collection of Ethicist columns here.

Click here to read past columns by The Ethicist.

Share
Tweet
Share
Email
Print
About the author
Woods Bowman

The esteemed and beloved Woods Bowman, professor emeritus of public service management at DePaul University in Chicago, Illinois, passed away in July 2015.

More about: Management and LeadershipOpinionThe Ethicist

Become a member

Support independent journalism and knowledge creation for civil society. Become a member of Nonprofit Quarterly.

Members receive unlimited access to our archived and upcoming digital content. NPQ is the leading journal in the nonprofit sector written by social change experts. Gain access to our exclusive library of online courses led by thought leaders and educators providing contextualized information to help nonprofit practitioners make sense of changing conditions and improve infra-structure in their organizations.

Join Today
logo logo logo logo logo
See comments

Spring-2023-sidebar-subscribe
You might also like
Hierarchy and Justice
Cyndi Suarez
Salvadoran Foreign Agent Law Threatens Human Rights Movements
Devon Kearney
Charitable Tax Reform: Why Half Measures Won’t Curb Plutocracy
Alan Davis
Healing-Centered Leadership: A Path to Transformation
Shawn A. Ginwright
Into the Fire: Lessons from Movement Conflicts
Ingrid Benedict, Weyam Ghadbian and Jovida Ross
How Nonprofits Can Truly Advance Change
Hildy Gottlieb

NPQ Webinars

April 27th, 2 pm ET

Liberatory Decision-Making

How to Facilitate and Engage in Healthy Decision-making Processes

Register Now
You might also like
Hierarchy and Justice
Cyndi Suarez
Salvadoran Foreign Agent Law Threatens Human Rights...
Devon Kearney
Charitable Tax Reform: Why Half Measures Won’t Curb...
Alan Davis

Like what you see?

Subscribe to the NPQ newsletter to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

See our newsletters

By signing up, you agree to our privacy policy and terms of use, and to receive messages from NPQ and our partners.

NPQ-Spring-2023-cover

Independent & in your mailbox.

Subscribe today and get a full year of NPQ for just $59.

subscribe
  • About
  • Contact
  • Advertise
  • Copyright
  • Careers

We are using cookies to give you the best experience on our website.

 

Non Profit News | Nonprofit Quarterly
Powered by  GDPR Cookie Compliance
Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.

Strictly Necessary Cookies

Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.

If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again.