Image: Rogare

Rogare, the international fundraising think tank, has launched a project and working paper asking whether fundraising ideas developed in English-speaking countries are crowding out practices better suited to local cultures of philanthropy.

The paper, Does one size fit all? Cultural differences in the evolution and development of global fundraising professions, argues that much thinking about best practice, ethics and regulation originates in the “anglosphere” and is then exported to fundraising professions around the world. It asks whether those ideas always suit other cultures and, even where they do, whether they displace local approaches that might work better.

A roadmap, not a prescription

Rogare emphasises that it is not telling fundraisers in any country how to professionalise, which it calls inappropriate anglophone behaviour. Instead it offers a template that fundraisers can adopt or adapt. It recommends four stages:

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• identify the characteristics of the local social culture;
  
• describe the local culture of philanthropy;
  
• compare anglophone best practice, ethics and standards with local values to see which fit and which are problematic;
  
• and consider the most appropriate forms of professionalisation.

The working paper draws on Geert Hofstede’s six-dimension model of national culture, and acknowledges criticisms of it. Rogare defines professionalisation as a group of fundraisers collectively moving their practice towards greater effectiveness, efficiency and accountability within their local culture of philanthropy. It says this “categorically does not mean” adopting the norms of any one culture.

Commission and ‘because of you’

The paper gives two examples. Paying fundraisers by commission is almost universally prohibited in the English-speaking world, but might be acceptable elsewhere, or might not: Rogare says it does not know.

Donor-centred fundraising‘s habit of singling out the donor for praise, the “because of you…” direct mail letter, reflects individualist anglophone culture and might not play well in more collectivist ones, such as those found in Asia.

Alice Ferris of US agency GoalBusters, a Rogare Associate Member and Council member, said:

“Calling something best practice doesn’t make it universally best, and the fundraising profession keeps mistaking its own reflection for a universal law.”

No universal ethics, and next steps

The key implication, Rogare argues, concerns ethics. Its Rights-Balancing Fundraising Ethics framework balances fundraisers’ duties to donors and to beneficiaries, and those duties may vary between cultures. A practice that is unethical in one culture, such as paying commission, could therefore be ethical in another, meaning “there can be no universal global standard of fundraising ethics”.

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