Ethics in Nonprofit Corporations

In any company or organization ethical behavior is crucial in order to be successful.  Ethics can be defined as a guideline as to what is wrong or right when faced with moral dilemmas; they govern the actions and decisions of an individual or group in a company or organization.  Throughout the past week in my Public Relations Research class we have discussed the topic of Ethics in terms of research.  Although some would not think of ethics as an important part of public relations research, it in fact is a strong basis for what research is all about.  Along with ethics playing a large role in research, they also have a strong impact in nonprofit organizations.

After learning about ethical behavior, I became compelled as to how important ethics are in nonprofit corporations.  An article titled Nonprofit Communication Must Be Ethical located in the Philanthropy Journal, talked about the importance of ethical behavior from corporations in order for nonprofits to remain trust worthy in the community.  For nonprofits to remain successful they must receive funding from single or multiple sources, which means they rely on their positive reputation to keep the donations coming in.  Nonprofits use various marketing strategies to draw the public’s attention, but according to Nonprofit Communication Must Be Ethical there is an ethical pitfall in the way some corporations communicate that may be misleading or deceptive. 

Nonprofits market to a more vulnerable target audience where it is important to build the public’s trust even more so than in a large corporate company.  In order for nonprofits to gain positive attitudes towards their corporation there needs to be a stronger emphasis on ethics.  Instead of creating a reputation based upon image, nonprofits should be developing recognition through ethically-informed practices.  In the world of nonprofits it is even more important for your company to represent honesty and trust. The article Nonprofit Communication Must Be Ethical mentions the mission statement of the company being a good place to start when attempting to send a more ethics based message to the public.  Any corporation should make sure that they are putting themselves out to the public in a way that represents the mission behind the company. Nonprofits especially need to double check to ensure that they are promoting themselves in an ethical way, in order to keep their donations and reputation alive. 

Ethics in the nonprofit industry can be related back to the ethics we are learning about in Public Relations Research, in both cases there needs to be the trust factor in order to be successful.  The public needs to rely on both researchers and nonprofits to be honest and upfront about what their purpose is.  In my opinion it is essential for nonprofits to base their company upon ethics, especially because of the typical vulnerable target audience they are directed towards.  The audience of a nonprofit needs to have faith that they are receiving the best possible service, and for this to happen nonprofits need to be based on honesty.  I believe that all nonprofits should be less concerned with their image and more concerned with the message they are sending out to their public.