054. NGO scandals: causes, consequences and prevention + recovery strategies: Cassandra Chapman

Summary

INGOs have been rocked by scandals and allegations of abuse of power, discrimination etc. in the last 5-10 years. 

What kind of different types of scandals can we distinguish in our sector?

Which factors that affect nonprofit scandals remain understudied?

What's the distinction between integrity violations and competency violations? And should we be getting more concerned as a sector about the latter

In this NGO Soul+Strategy podcast episode, I interview Cassandra Chapman, Associate Professor of Marketing at the University of Queensland, Australia, on causes, consequences, and prevention and recovery strategies for NGO scandals.

Cassandra’s Bio:

• Associate Professor in Marketing at the Business School of the University of Queensland
• Associate Editor at Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly
• Former practitioner - Supporter Development Manager as well as Fundraising & Communications Manager at ChildFund, New Zealand

We discuss: 

• If the consequences of transgressions by nonprofits are directly relevant to the mission of nonprofits, then they are being punished harsher by the public and the media
• Scandal consequences go up, if the nonprofit is perceived to be inactive afterward, or tries to cover it up
• ‘Expectancy violations’ happen when nonprofits engage in ethical transgressions because nonprofits are perceived to be/are expected to be ‘good’
• Researchers should examine more on whether sector-level actions by nonprofit apex or peak bodies engage in apology, acknowledgment, and reparative actions
• Persons who feel morally credentialled by working in nonprofits are actually more likely to transgress

Quotes:

“My mission as an academic is to create usable know-how for practitioners”

“People assume that there is a crisis in trust in charities; instead, actually, trust in charities has continued a little bit in charities over time”

Resources:

Cassandra’s LinkedIn

Cassandra’s Twitter

Cassandra’s article: (this article is not available through Open Access; message Cassandra through LinkedIn and she can send you the PDF version)

Cassandra’s short summary post on LinkedIn

An upcoming website with summaries of articles by Cassandra: www.donorpsych.org

Tosca’s essay on ‘Can organizational culture explain recent INGo scandals’ provides further perspectives

Youtube video of this podcast

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