Is it ethical to say I "work" for a charity?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I started a response in this thread about people being compensated $1 for work they do, Working for $1 per year - Factual Questions - Straight Dope Message Board and it started me questioning if what I was thinking of doing might be seen as unethical. So I thought I would pose the question here.

I am on the Board of Directors for one non-profit charity and hold the position of Director of Charity Events for a hobby-related club. I had been thinking of asking to be paid $1 a year for my services. It wouldn’t be for tax reasons, or to get any benefits. I would like to be compensated in some way because I think it would make it easier for me to raise funds and make contacts.

What happens now when I meet someone new is they usually start a conversion with asking what kind of work I am in, or where do I work, or what kind of job do I have.

The correct answer is I am retired and no longer work for a living, so I spend my time working with a few charities to raise much needed funds and raise awareness of some specific needs in our community.

The response I get to mentioning I am retired is not something I enjoy. The convesation then turns to questions of, how I was able to retire so young? Or did I marry someone rich and then get to quit working? Or them telling me they would never retire so young if they could, they would get too bored. And I never have an adequate response for “Must be nice, you getting to play all day while the rest of us have to work.” And at that point I am no longer taken seriously. They see the volunteer work I do as something frivilous I do to fill my free time or relieve my guilt of having money. And some immediately feel I must have done something illegal or immoral to earn enough money at a young age to retire.

None of those assumptions are true. I am very passionate about the charities I work with. I work very hard and love seeing how that work transfers to meeting the needs of others who are not as fortunate as I am. Part of my goal when working was to be able to retire early so I could be in the position I am in now. I am very glad things have worked out as they have, and would rather not be in a position where I feel a need to justify what I do because people often make wrong assumptions about me. For the most part, the responses are not meant to come across as insulting or rude. I don’t believe they are purpsosely trying to make me feel bad. But I know from experience that when people have that little bit of information about me, it often leads to discussions I would rather not have.

So I was thinking if when asked, I was able to say “I work for XXX charity, we raise money for XXX,” then the conversation would then turn to the charity and I would have a chance to talk about what we do and who we help. The people I am talking to might then be able to tell me of someone they know doing something similar that I could network and brainstorm with, might know of companies who might be interested in sponsoring a charity event, or be able to supply us with some needed resourses. They also might know of someone in need of what we offer, so we could help them. We don’t have an advertising budget, we rely on word of mouth to spread information about who we are and what we do.

But I really don’t want to be misleading, by making it appear that I make a living in that position. If the conversation progressed past a certain point, I would make it clear that all who work with XXX are unpaid volunteers, all money goes straight to people who need it. We don’t have offices, or expense accounts. We just want to fill a need by working together.

So for my question, pretend you have just met me, introduced by mutal friends, and the subject of what kind of work I do came up. I tell you I work for XXX. When you ask, I tell you about what we do and who we help. I mention an upcoming event I am currently working on and invite you to attend if you have any interest. You mention you know of someone who you think would like to help with what we do, or someone who is in need of what we do. I give you my card with our webiste and encourage you to pass it along.*

You liked what you heard me talking about, and know of some people who would be interested in finding out more about XXX. You mention this to our mutal friend who introduced us and find out I am really retired, and now spend my time working with XXX as a volunteer. Would you feel misled when you found that out? Would you think it wrong of me to not have mentioned my involvement was not as a paid employee when the only reason the subject came up was because you had asked about my job?

I am just trying to sort out if whether taking the step of being compensated a dollar a year so I can say I “work” for XXX is unethical. I certainly don’t want to risk anyone feeling that XXX is unethical because of my actions. The problem I am trying to solve is really not that big a of a deal, I would just like to be able to put the focus on the charities rather than how I got in the position to be able to help them.

Any thoughts appreciated on whether I should pursue getting the dollar year compensation or just leave things as is.

*All this is done in a casual way. I know I don’t like sales pitches from people I just met, so I really only go into detail if the person is interested beyond the normal polite inquiries. And when meeting new people, the subject of work does not always come up. I am not meaning to sound like all I do is run around talking about a subject most people would not be interested in.

2

Yes.

3

I have “worked” for a charity (I was Director of Shelter Operations for a Humane Society) and anyone who thinks fundraising isn’t work is full of it. My job wasn’t fundraising (yes I was paid) but I worked closely with some of the board members who devoted quite a bit of their time to helping keep the shelter going. Whether you are paid or not, fundraising is work. If you feel that saying you work “for” XXX is misleading, use the phrase “work with”.

4

I’m not convinced you need to have an income from that charity to be able to say you work for them. If you spend a significant amount of your time and effort every day doing things to benefit that charity, why is that not work?! You yourself have made it clear that you don’t allow a misunderstanding to go on very long with anyone that does show an interest.

That said, I don’t see anything ethically wrong with asking for $1/year if it makes you feel more comfortable.

5

It would only be ethical if you subsequently changed your literature to state that 00.0001% of their donations go towards administrative fees.

6

I can empathize a bit. When I was 41 I took about 6 months to travel around the U.S. I thought I was fortunate to be able to do it, but many of the people I met seemed to think I was some kind of bum. I was quite surprised by this, but I got past it and enjoyed my hiatus.
I think you should simply say that you’re a fund raiser for local charities, why should it matter how you’re compensated?

7

I wouldn’t have any problem with you saying you work for them.

Or, you could phrase it like: “I am a full-time volunteer for X.”

8

I do work for a charity. As in, I get paid to work in the office and bang my head repeatedly against walls to get money. Or so it seems. Anyway,volunteers are our backbone and I certainly don’t think it’s unethical, even if you don’t get paid a red cent. if it helps you help us, have at it.

9

You’re doing work for them, therefore you work for them. Whose business is it how much money you make, even if its nothing? No one’s, that’s whose.

10

Being paid $1 a year is the same as being unpaid, for all practical purposes. If I were to feel “misled” by discovering you were unpaid, do you seriously think I’d change my mind if it turned out you were actually receiving $1 a year? It’s an obvious token amount, which changes the situation not at all.

11

Thanks for the replies, they really helped clear some things up for me.

I think SnakesCatLady’s suggestion would work for what I want. Rethinking this all leads me to the context of why people are asking, it is just a natural conversation starter. What they are wanting to know is how I am spending my time, not so much who pays me or how much. So in that sense, saying I work “with” the charity can be an honest answer to what they want to know.

So I really don’t need to complicate things unnecessarily by getting a dollar in compensation. It might effect our literature as Enderw mentions, and I wouldn’t want to have to check into that. And as Alive at Both Ends points out, it being a token amount really doesn’t change anything so why bother with acting as if it did?

It’s funny, my husband retired when I did, when our residual income was enough to cover what we wanted to do. He never gets the same assumptions I do when people find out he no longer works. They don’t assume he grew up wealthy or got a large inheritence, or married money. They assume he worked hard, got lucky, and was able to meet his goal of retiring by a certain age. He gets congratulations and people telling him they hope to join him soon. I get rolled eyes and comments about Bon Bon’s, facials, and soap operas.

So I like the suggestion of saying to new people that I work “with” the charities. I can avoid having to overcome a negative first impression which will make things easier for me to accomplish what needs to be done.

Thanks again.

12

Ditto. We don’t pay our volunteers, but some of them do so much work for us that I practically consider them co-workers.

Go for it.

13

I’ve read the OP like a dozen times and I really don’t understand the problem. It seems the correct answer to “what do you do?” or “where do you work?” is precicely addressed in the second paragraph: “I am on the Board of Directors for one non-profit charity and hold the position of Director of Charity Events for a hobby-related club.”

What is wrong with that answer?

14

If anything, I’d be happier to work with, donate to or otherwise help your charity knowing that you AREN’T paid. I’m one of those folks who looks very closely at the percentage of donations that go to administrative costs. If it’s too high, I won’t donate, 'cause I assume my donation is going to pay for new mahogany conference room tables instead of transplants for orphaned kittens.

15

Reading over the entire thread, it does seem like an obvious answer now. It is what I do, and have been doing for some time. When I answered in the past, I would mention I was now retired, and spent time doing the charity work. That answer always prompted discussions about my retirement, and comments about my being a lady of leisure. After that I felt I was no longer taken seriously and the charities I worked for would not be taken seriously either.

When I would leave off the part of about retiring, people would assume I was employed by the charity and since I wasn’t, that answer felt dishonest. So I was looking for a way I could work for the charities, without actually taking a paycheck. I thought that by having a contract in the sense mentioned in the earlier thread, I would feel I could say I “worked” there without feeling like I was misleading people.

But now reading through the replies here, I don’t feel that saying I work with the charity is dishonest. I easily average over 30 hours a week working on projects, and am constantly looking for ideas for the next project. It is hard to explain, but everytime that question would come up, I never felt I could answer it in the right way. I would like to use that basic question as a way to educate people about what our program does. I think I can do that now.

And WhyNot, that is a good point about people preferring that the charities they give to spends the money directly on the cause. None of us are paid, we all work out of our homes and cover our own expenses, so that should be something I should mention if the conversation gets more detailed. I had been seeing that as a negative, but it really is a positive.

16

Sorry, but that just made me burst out laughing.

But to the OP.

Grits and Hard Toast, I only wish paid employees at non-profits had half the moral ethics you have!

I once worked for what is considered the “Rolls Royce” of charities - an international non-profit, one that paid their employees a decent salary, but unfortunately, paid their directors an ungodly amount of money. It made me sick.

Yes, it takes money to make money - that is the sad truth behind charities. There are many places you can go and find out exactly how many pennies of every dollar you donate actually go to the charity, and how much go to paying salaries. You will be shocked when you see what some people earn, and how little of your donation actually goes to the funding of charitable deeds.

Then again - is it better to pay millions for a director who can bring in 10’s of millions? Or is it better to pay less to bring in less? What do you decide as a volunteer member of the Board of Directors.

Non-profits are cutthroat…“that bitch from breast cancer stole my donor at lunch yesterday.”

The fact that you are concerned is a reason I personally would throw you money and time.

I think you should ask for more money. A minimum of $1000 a month.
Fight for it.
Why?

Because you sound like someone who will wind up giving that money back to the organization anyway, and not only that, you will then be motivated to kick butt.

Put together a proposal what you will do with $1000 a month or more!

Mailings, fundraisers, ads, research…you know what you can do with it. Then if anybody asks, you can say you are a professional fundraiser, because, whether you believe it or not, you already are.

17

It is interesting to read that. The reason we started the non-profit in the first place was because the National charities that cover the same thing we do were so hard to work with. They had grown so big, had so many layers of red tape to deal with, we were finding people who were in need and qualified for assistance just weren’t getting any help. There were so many hoops to jump through and so much paperwork and waiting for others to look it over an approve it, that in some cases is was just too late by the time the people could get help. I understand that they need to make sure their money will be used for what is intended, but we saw the result was that many people were falling through the cracks.

One friend of mine started helping those people on her own. She really couldn’t afford to, but she went without other things to help when needed. I saw what she was doing I also donated money and time. A few others did as well. A lawyer friend saw what we were doing and volunteered to handle all the legal paperwork to get us non-profit status. We really hadn’t intended to start a charity of our own, but we knew the non-profit status would really help us with donations of items we needed from local companies. And we knew several local businesses would be able to become sponsors if they could have the tax advantage. Another friend volunteered her computer graphic experience to make our logo, flyers, info brochures etc. And although none of had previous fundraising experience, we decided to get to work and see if we could make a difference.

My previous job experience dealt with putting on large events, so that is where we started once we got our non-profit status. We decided not to go the route the big charities were going and put on big fancy events, so expensive to attend that only a small % of people could afford to attend. We worked hard at getting everything donated so we could have an event that was very inexpensive to attend. Once at the event people would have lots of options of games or contests to enter for a chance at nice donated prizes, with that money going to the charity. People could donate at whatever level they were comfortable with, no heavy push. In each case we raised much more than we had expected, the people being very generous.

Since we are so small, we have to be creative with how we raise money. The town I live in is sports crazy, so a very inexpensive way to raise money is for a photographer in our group to take pictures of the local sports celebrities. The photographer donates his time and materials. Then we hunt the sports stars down and ask them to sign the pictures so we can sell them and use the money for the charity. Everyone we have asked has happily helped us. And our photographer is so good, we have even had a couple of the sports stars ask if they could buy some of the pictures to send to their moms. Never would have seen that coming! We are starting to get ready for Christmas, getting the word out that people can order a picture and have the celebrity personalize the autograph to a specific person for a unique Christmas present.

One of the charities our club supports had an unusual fundraiser, sort of a raffle with a twist. They were having a big picnic to thank all the volunteers at one of the volunteer’s farm. They marked off one of the pastures into a big grid and labled and sold each square in the grid before the event. Then they stuck a cow out on the pasture and watched and waited as the cow strolled around, lazily grazing across the pasture. The winner was the person who had bought the square that the cow eventually pooped on. That was Cow-Pie Bingo. Not sure how that would play in other parts of the country, but here everyone got a big kick out of it. Part of the success I think was how funny it was when selling the tickets to explain how the winner was selected. Most times asking someone to buy a raffle ticket is an unpleasant experience, you hate to feel like you are pressuring someone into something they don’t want to do. But with this, the idea was so silly both parties could not help but laugh while talking about it. There were many responses like this:

“OK, so the person who has the square that gets shit on first, wins? Being shit on is the only thing I can count on lately. I’m in!”

The charity got lots of media coverage, and they raised $10,000 selling all those squares. The only expense was a couple of cans of spray paint and printing up the raffle tickets, both which were donated.

So we are going to continue on with our low key approach, and see if we can’t fill the gap between the big National charities and the people who they were created to help.

And thanks to those giving words of support. That can really help to keep us going and focused.

.

18

Yes. I have been a volunteer Local official, and also on the BoD of a Non-Profit. I add them to my resume (not under “employment”, as I am currently employed FT). Occassionaly, I have said that I “work” for them.

It’s work. Even without the $1.

Now, a few hours a week as a line volunteer might not rise to “I work for”. But being an Officer or on the BoD certainly does.