Paper calls for new ethical approach to framing service users in fundraising
Melanie May | 20 April 2022 | News
All charities should routinely develop and implement ethical policies for how they collect and tell stories of their service users in fundraising and marketing materials, just as most already have ethical gift acceptance/refusal policies, a new paper recommends.
The recommendation is made in a new paper in the Journal of Philanthropy and Marketing, which argues for a new way of thinking about the ethics of the framing of charity services users.
Written by Ian MacQuillin, Director of Rogare; Jess Crombie, London College of Communication; and Ruth Smyth, from Boldlight and a member of the Rogare Council), the paper argues that the consensus about how services users ought to be ‘framed’ in marketing and fundraising has proved elusive.
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At one pole is the ‘Fundraising Frame’, which argues that fundraisers need to present those images and tell those stories that will motivate people to give the most money to provide services, even if this means showing distressing images of services users.
At the other pole is the ‘Values Frame’, which argues that charities ought to tell and present more positive stories and images of services users, which protect their dignity and challenge stereotypes, despite a general acceptance this will likely result in less money raised.
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The solution presented in the new paper is to base ethical framing in whether services users have exercised ‘agency’ and ‘voice’ in telling their own stories, so becoming ‘contributors’ to charities’ fundraising as well as users of their services.
The formulation of framing ethics advanced in the paper is: framing in fundraising is ethical when it provides a way for service users/contributors to use their voice and agency to contribute to their own framing and the telling of their own stories, and unethical when it does not. This puts an onus on charities to consult with and include their service users about their marketing and fundraising communications to enable them to become contributors.
The paper outlines some ways in which this could be accomplished by drawing on the literature of “co-creation” of services. A key recommendation is the development of ethical policies that codify the rights of service users to consultation and fundraisers’ duties to ensure this happens.
Jess Crombie said:
“Many charities, as a matter of course, have ethical gift policies to guide them about when to accept, refuse or return a donation. We have these policies so we can pre-empt those ethical issues and have an ethical decision-making framework for navigating any that do pop up.
“In the same vein, charities should also have ethical contributor policies that stipulate the processes and identify ethical dilemmas in gathering service user/contributor-generated content.”
She added that a key component of such policies “must be the implementation of a genuine consent process rather than one that merely legally protects the organisation”.
Also commenting, Ruth Smyth said:
“The perennial debate about whether fundraisers should use positive or negative frames for their appeals has been hard to resolve. In this paper we suggest a different way to look at the issue and propose a co-creation approach to develop fundraising communications. To use this approach it’s important to understand how donors respond to different methods so we’ve also reviewed research into what helps to raise the most money. Hopefully taken together this will give fundraisers an approach and the background information to raise more for their causes and carry out fundraising in an ethical way.”
The paper – ‘“The sweetest songs” – Ethical framing in fundraising through the agency of service users/contributors to tell their own stories’ – is available through open access on the Journal of Philanthropy and Marketing website. It is the culmination of Rogare’s project to explore the ethics of the framing service users. Previous Rogare papers have considered the evidence for and against negative framing (by Ruth Smyth) and a review of studies that have investigated the voice of contributors in fundraising (by Jess Crombie). Both papers are available on the framing ethics page on the Rogare website.
Ian MacQuillin commented:
“With this paper we have moved the discussion about framing ethics beyond a play off between money raised against whether services users’/contributors’ dignity has been protected. Ethical framing is now contingent on whether service users/contributors have exercised voice and agency in contributing to their own framing and telling their own stories. Other things being equal, fundraising frames are ethical when contributors have choice in what stories are told, and get to tell their own stories, and unethical when they do not.”
In March, research from the University of East Anglia, University of the Arts London and Amref Health Africa, which was co-authored by Jess Crombie, found that fundraising appeals led by the people they intend to help can raise more money and be more effective than those created by the charity itself.
About Melanie May
Melanie May is a journalist and copywriter specialising in writing both for and about the charity and marketing services sectors since 2001. She can be reached via thepurplepim.com.