Philosophy

Should charities accept money from ethically dubious donors?

A question of judgment—and self-preservation

December 27, 2019
Was The National Portrait Gallery right to accept donations from BP? Photo:  Isabel Infantes/EMPICS Entertainment
Was The National Portrait Gallery right to accept donations from BP? Photo: Isabel Infantes/EMPICS Entertainment

It is the season of giving—a critical time for many charities, non-profits and cultural organisations that rely on the Christmas boost to get them through the following year.

But what about when money is donated from questionable sources—controversial companies, say, or disreputable individuals. Should it be accepted?

General Booth, founder of the Salvation Army, was clear about his view on the matter. “I shall take all the money I can get, and I shall wash it clean with the grateful tears of widows and orphans,” he is alleged to have said.

It is a question that has reared its head frequently in recent times, as with the long-running protests against BP's sponsorship of the Tate and National Portrait Gallery. Perhaps the highest profile case has been that of the Sackler family, the owners of Purdue Pharma, a company that is accused of profiting from the opioid crisis in the US through the sale of painkiller OxyContin. The family, which denies wrongdoing, has been a major donor to educational and cultural organisations, to the tune of around £80m in the UK. The Victoria and Albert Museum has a Sackler Courtyard, while the British Museum and National Gallery both have Sackler Rooms, and the Serpentine has a Sackler Gallery.

But as controversy surrounding the business increasingly hits the headlines, those institutions have come under pressure to reject new donations and strip the name from their buildings. Many concededothers did notsome took a while to decide.

It’s a tough challenge for any charity or institution strapped for cash and trying to keep its programmes going. A similar diversity of responses emerged last year when a newspaper investigation made allegations of rampant sexual harassment at the annual President’s Club fundraising dinner, which had donated millions to charitable causes including Cancer Research and Great Ormond Street. Some charities said they would return the donations, others that they would not accept new ones, and yet others remained silent. The trustees of the President's Club say the allegations were unsubstantiated.

It is tempting to see such things in black and white—whether you accept General Booth’s utilitarian argument that the source of charitable funding doesn’t matter so long as it’s being used for good; or believe that charities have nothing if they don’t stand by their morals.

But the answer is arguably more nuanced—not just because it’s a tough moral toss-up, and what’s right for one organisation might not be right for another, but also because these cases and others like them differ in important ways.

First up is whether the money has been generated in problematic ways, or simply belongs to a problematic person. In the case of the Sacklers and BP, for example, the accusation is often that the money itself is tainted because of how it has been earned. With the President’s Club, it was behaviour beyond the source of the money that was at issue.

Many people may see the former as more pertinent—not least because it is more easily known; charities cannot know about the personal behaviour of all their donors. It is also more integral to the donation. But then again, specifics matter—an addiction charity accepting money from the Sacklers, or a climate change charity accepting money from BP, could be seen differently to an art gallery.

Second, size matters. Most charities and non-profits only vet donations above a certain amount. Reported donations from the President’s Club ranged from £2,000 for children’s books—well below the limit at which most charities would vet a donation—to £650,000 for an intensive care unit at a hospital. The larger the donation, the more problematic it could become—but the harder it is to turn down.

Third is the question of whether the issue was known about before the donation was accepted. Although this is critical to a moral evaluation, in practical terms charities often come under pressure to return the money regardless of whether they knew about a problem or not.

After the President’s Club scandal, charities including Clatterbridge, which had received £15,000 towards the building of a specialist cancer hospital, and Evelina children’s hospital, which received the funds for an intensive care unit, not only rejected future donations but also said they would send back the money they had already received (some later reversed that decision). There is, of course, a reputational question at play—no charity wants to be accused of lacking moral integrity. Some might worry it could affect future donations from other sources, although for many charities, sums like these are hard to recover elsewhere.

Fourth—and crucially—is the donor’s motivation. Whether it is more or less troubling for an addiction charity than an art gallery to accept a donation from, say, the Sacklers depends on this. Money gained through the sale of something that has done damage could be offered by way of a heartfelt apology and effort to make amends. Or it could be offered for good PR, and to divulge the donor of further responsibility.

Related to this is what is expected in return. Names on walls, for example, can make a donation more problematic—many argue that it offers reputational cover to a donor and helps to strengthen their public image. It also makes it harder for an organisation to expunge the association if things go wrong. "It’s atrocious that BP can try to cover themselves up by investing in art," said one protester at the recent BP Portrait Award exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, pointing to the environmental damage done by oil. The gallery countered that BP's support had allowed it to make the exhibition free and encourage entries from artists around the world. But it also said the debate raised "important questions" about arts funding and that it was "listening carefully to voices on all sides."

The default position for charitable causes will always be to raise as much money as they can, in order to continue and expand their work. Each charity and non-profit has its own stance on the limits of this, and has to make a call on the balance of moral and practical considerations.

What all charity fundraisers agree on is that it causes far more disruption to return money that has already been accepted—and therefore has been allocated to a project, or perhaps even spent—than to turn it down in the first place. That makes a thorough due diligence process—one that grapples with all these issues—critical. At the end of the day, those at the centre of the criticism should always be a donor accused of doing wrong, rather than a charity or cultural institution that has accepted funds in an effort to do good.