Ethics refers to identifying what is good and evil, right and wrong, improper and proper and choosing the right, good and proper. Making ethical decisions can be complex but it is often aided by the law (Renz, 2016). Ethical issues are at times unavoidable. They happen to all of us no matter how nice or bad you may be. However, they should not be feared. All it takes is for the affected individual's willingness to deal with the issues.
Recently, NPOs have experienced an increased in unethical practices. There are several issues that affect these organisations. When these issues stay unaddressed, they lead to lack of confidence among the public towards the organisations (Svara, 2014). This also jeopardises the funding abilities of the organization.
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Conflict of Interest
One of the main ethical dilemma facing NPOs is conflict of interest. Quite often, board members use their office positions to achieve personal gain (Svara, 2014). This puts the organization in a tenuous situation. At times, major donors are given preferential treatment and lucrative contracts. This lack of transparency makes it easy for organizations to cover up services and contracts given to persons with personal relationships with people who hold offices in these non-profits, their family members and employees.
Possible Ways to Resolve This Ethical Dilemmas
When faced with these dilemmas, the very first step is identifying the nature of the dilemma. Once a problem has been identified, then a solution to it can be sought.
Honesty is also very vital in resolving non-profit organisations ethics issues. Honesty entails telling the truth without leaving out any details (Svara, 2014). This entails telling the truth to all constituents and donors.
Scenario
The organization's procurement department is giving tenders for the supply of Staff T-shirts. The company's executive director has asked the procurement manager to compare prices since all the companies that have applied for the tender seem to have high quality of work and a good record in service delivery. One of the companies shortlisted for this tender is owned and operated by one of the non-profit organization top donors. However, his quotation for delivery of this service is higher than all the other applicant's quotations. The procurement manager knows that if he issues the tender to this company, he will get a good percentage of the profit the company gains, as was the deal they had struck with the supplying company's boss. However, the non-profits policy on hiring vendors is "best quality at affordable prices". However, the procurement manager hires the donor's company as the new staff t-shirts vendor so as to seal the deal he struck with the t-shirts company's owner.
This is a common scenario of conflict of interest in many non-profit organizations. However, it is an ethical issue that can easily be dealt with through making the procurement process open and transparent. Instead of leaving such major decisions to an individual or a department, the whole organizations should be involved. All departments should be part of this process. Tender applicants should also be vetted and all their information disclosed to everyone who is part of the hiring process.
Solution
Making the process an open and transparent one will reduce the chances of biases in the selection of the most favourable candidate. Cases of favouritism will be easy to detect too. Vetting of the applicants will enable members of the organisations to assess the applicants on a one on one basis so as to understand their motives for the supplies application as well as give the applicants a chance to elaborate on their quotations. This openness and transparency strategy ensures that honesty is exercised during the vendor hiring process (Renz, 2016).
References
Renz, D. O. (2016). The Jossey-Bass handbook of nonprofit leadership and management . John Wiley & Sons.
Svara, J. H. (2014). The ethics primer for public administrators in government and non-profit organizations . Jones & Bartlett Publishers.
