Topics Ethics

Question I sent a small donation by cheque to someone specifically for cancer research and left payee line open for them to fill name of project in. It now transpires cheque was made payable to that persons partner. I suspect this was to cover postage of collected goods to another part of world also for charity although I had made it known that would not be acceptable to me. It came to my notice only when I checked my accounts. How should I broach this with friend and is it acceptable for someobe to take money for one charitable cause and use it for another?

Accepted:
April 18, 2013

Comments

People often donate money to charities because they (i) have a special concern for the focus of the charity and/or (ii) because they research the charity and choose carefully the one they want - for instance people often donate money to charities for diseases that have affected their life somehow. In these cases, it would be wrong to redirect that money to other charities because (i) one misleads the donor about the destination of the money and (ii) one ignores the donor's wishes - and their right to determine to which good cause their money goes. One can imagine, too, cases where a person donates money to honour the memory of a deceased relative - one who died from the disease that one then donates money to the research of - and that would make it much worse.

But even in a case where a person donates money to a charity chosen arbitrarily or capriciously - well, that's still surely a violation of trust.