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The Indecent Proposal: My Experience With Sexual Harassment in Fundraising.
40 Plays6 months ago
In this episode, Tom discusses the realities of sexual harassment in fundraising and shares his reflections and learnings from a time when a prospective donor attempted to induce him to have sex in exchange for a large donation.
Dr. E.E. Beaton's Personal Website with links to her research on sexual harassment in nonprofit settings:
https://www.erynnbeaton.com/research
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Check out www.abundantvision.net
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Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast
00:00:06
Speaker
Welcome to the Abundant Vision fundraising podcast. Whether you're a seasoned professional or a first-time fundraiser, we have the advice you need to take your next step towards major gift mastery. I'm your host, Tom Dahmer, president of Abundant Vision Philanthropic Consulting.
Addressing Sexual Harassment in Fundraising
00:00:23
Speaker
So if you follow me on LinkedIn, and I hope you do, you'll notice I recently posted that I was part of the 76% of fundraisers that have experienced sexual harassment. Now, given that 71% or so of all fundraisers are are female, there is a common assumption that it's only the women who get this sort of treatment. Well, it's not. Men are also at risk here too. You see, fundraising by its very nature is fraught with power dynamics. It's the person in need.
00:01:01
Speaker
who is approaching the person with money and power. With such dynamics at play, it's no surprise that unethical individuals attempt to take advantage of that situation. Now, I don't have answers for you. As long as there were selfish, manipulative people in this world, I believe there's gonna be bad behavior and that's not going away anytime soon. So before I tell you my story, I do wanna say this.
00:01:28
Speaker
My story is just my story. As a young fundraiser, it felt scary, but I understand well that many of my peers have experienced much worse, much more frequently. As a white male, I believe I am much less likely to be harassed in this way. And in no way do I want to lift up this one incident from my past in a way that diminishes the experiences of others. My hope though, is that sharing my story will help others to better appreciate the widespread nature of the
Challenges in Faith-Based Fundraising
00:02:04
Speaker
problem. That is, if someone like Tom's had this experience, how much more might others be dealing with this? The other thing I want to say, in 25 years of fundraising, I have only experienced sexual harassment a single time. That's one time out of
00:02:24
Speaker
more than 4,000 visits with donors. Most of the individuals I have met with have been good people interested in supporting a cause that matters to them. I don't want to give the impression that the majority of the constituents out there behave in this way. There are lots of wealthy people that have good character and good morals and would never think of taking advantage of a fundraiser, but it does happen.
Early Career Struggles
00:02:54
Speaker
And that's why we need to talk about it. Now, let me just give you some context as to what was going on in my life at the time. So I graduated from Bowling Green State University, 1998 in December. And I don't remember exactly which year this was. This could have been 1999, this could have been 2000. But it was really early on in my career as a fundraiser.
00:03:21
Speaker
Now, at the time, I was working ah for Central Ohio Youth for Christ in a faith-based sort of context. And it's a different type of fundraising in that particular type of world. You're raising money for your salary and other expenses that the ministry might have.
00:03:39
Speaker
So when you're going out and asking people to support you, you're literally asking for the money that's going to put food on your table. Not my favorite way of fundraising. It's to me, the most psychologically difficult. um I have no problem asking people to help this organization over here or help our leader over here accomplish their their goals, of the nonprofit or help a university or a hospital that's played an important role in their lives. But it does feel a little bit different when I'm asking you to pay my salary and help me to have food on my table.
Harassment Incidents and Reactions
00:04:20
Speaker
Um, that's never been my favorite way of working. So, so that being said, I was still learning what I was doing. Um, but at the time, you know, I'd had a little bit of training and fundraising, but very little.
00:04:36
Speaker
was more you go out and ask people for money, right? So so part of my MO back in those days was i would I would speak at churches. There were probably, I don't know, 12, 13 churches in the greater community that I was working in. um and And I would just go in on a Sunday morning at any number of them.
00:05:00
Speaker
I was in a church pretty much every Sunday morning and the pastor would give me five, 10 minutes to update the congregation on the work that we were doing with youth in the area. um In many cases, I was permitted to talk about the need for supporters, also volunteers. And I was at a particular church that was a supporter of my work and a very well-dressed individual came up to me A gentleman, I guess I use that term very loosely, um came up to me and expressed an interest in meeting with me to talk about giving to the work that I was doing. This led to a meeting at his home. We were way out in the country, was snowing, getting towards dinnertime, and we talked.
00:05:56
Speaker
um He told me his life story and how he had made his money and the professional things that he was doing and asked me lots of questions about my life and personal interests. and One point actually, what was really kind of creepy is he started trying to tell me about myself, you know things that he observed about me.
00:06:15
Speaker
And he was a pretty good read. Like he was telling me things that I was like, how do you know that about me? But apparently he was good at just reading people and drawing conclusions from things that he noticed about them. But it was really creepy. I really felt like a fly might feel when they're trapped in the spider's web. It it was not a good feeling. It was very hospitable.
00:06:40
Speaker
He let me know that I could use this hot tub anytime I wanted to. It's you know it was one of those conversations. like So much was said. We talked for a very long time. But there were just certain things that he said in that conversation that you're like, that's the thing you remember. But it's the only time I've ever had a prospective donor tell me, oh, stop by anytime and use my hot tub. Really kind of weird. As the topic turned to money, though,
00:07:09
Speaker
That's where things got really weird. The individual explained to me, and and he understood that I was raising money to cover my salary and the needs of the ministry. He let me know that he could provide me with all the money that I could need if he can be an outlet for me. And I use that term outlet because that's exactly the term he used. He wanted to be an emotional, relational, and sexual outlet for me. i present maybe ah he He thought maybe that I was gay and might need a place to connect.
00:07:49
Speaker
for those feelings, but um well, one thing that I've learned about myself since that time is that in a fight, flight, or freeze scenario, I freeze.
00:08:02
Speaker
um you know my My childhood experience was one where I didn't always feel that safe. And I learned to deal with that by ignoring scary and painful things and just go on like they didn't happen. As I think back on that experience with this individual, I i wish I would have told him what I thought of him and and stood up and left. Instead, I let the meeting continue on as if nothing had been said.
00:08:31
Speaker
like I didn't hear it. Kind of embarrassing, but that is what I did. and I was 22 years just out of college and no one had ever thought to tell me that something like this could happen, especially in a faith-based
Employer's Response to Harassment
00:08:45
Speaker
fundraising environment. You just don't anticipate that people are going to try and buy sex from you. I'm fortunate to have left that situation with only feelings of embarrassment. You think about Bill Cosby and things that he did to his victims. But I wasn't drugged or taken advantage of in any way. But I felt like that I should share it with all of you. ah Just so you're aware that that this sort of thing happens in our profession.
00:09:17
Speaker
I'm not gonna pretend to have great expertise or knowledge on how to solve this problem. I don't believe that fundraisers will ever stop asking the powerful and wealthy for help. That's what we do. I do believe that being aware of this as a professional danger is very important. I think being prepared with a plan for what to do in an uncomfortable situation is a great first step. And I suspect that had I been prepared for such a situation. Maybe I wouldn't have frozen up. Maybe I would have stood up for myself. Maybe I would have got up and left. So what was the aftermath? Well, I was weirded out. Like I mentioned before, it was snowing and it was snowing pretty hard, but I pretty much decided that I would rather end up in a ditch somewhere on the countryside than spend any more time in that home. I sure as heck wasn't gonna spend the night there. I was prepared to walk if I needed to.
00:10:18
Speaker
But I told my employer, I let my manager know, and she had me talk to her chief development officer about what had happened. I believe I gave them kind of a written report as to what had happened. And they made some notes somewhere that we weren't to call on that individual again. I don't know if there's a ah filing cabinet at my old employer that has his name still somewhere. It'll tell ya you, know we lived in pretty much the same small town. In living there with that individual around,
00:10:48
Speaker
Knowing the pastor of that church and other members of their church, i I kept what happened to myself. I regret that. I wish I would have told the pastor what had happened. I'm not sure if I would have been believed, truthfully. I suspect that this individual was probably a good donor to the church. Who knows how that would have gone. Maybe yeah I saved myself grief by not bringing it up. I was kind of embarrassed too.
00:11:15
Speaker
mean l When you're 22 years old, you think you're invincible. And when you get embarrassed, you don't like to share that. And I did feel embarrassed about what had happened, even though I understand in retrospect that there was nothing to be embarrassed about.
Understanding and Sharing Harassment Experiences
00:11:32
Speaker
He's the one that should have been embarrassed. I was simply doing my job. So I just tucked that experience away. And I tried not to think about it too much. I don't think I ever really thought of myself as a victim of
00:11:47
Speaker
sexual harassment until I filled out a survey from a researcher at Ohio State University. Taking the survey actually gave me some language and some context to think more clearly about what had happened, and I'm grateful for that. I'm pretty sure that the the survey that I did was actually produced by the researcher that was referenced in the LinkedIn article that I responded to recently.
00:12:17
Speaker
But when I took the survey and realized what
Encouragement to Speak Up
00:12:21
Speaker
had happened, I had decided to be more open about the experience. At the time I was a manager of fundraisers, like I am now. And um I made a point of sharing this story with my team to remind them that they could potentially run into this type of behavior with donors. And I made sure that they heard from me directly, that they never have to meet with someone they aren't comfortable with. And that as their manager, should they run into such a situation where they are harassed or treated badly, that they will have my unconditional support. There is simply no place in fundraising to tolerate any kind of abuse or harassment from a constituent. I hate to say I still drive by the house.
00:13:06
Speaker
where this happened, and I'm reminded of that experience. I don't live far from my hometown. It still gives me the ick, as my kids would say. Well, I hope this was helpful. I hope that you come away from hearing this story with some sense of the need to be trained in these things.
00:13:29
Speaker
I'm not sure I'm the one to give the training. I don't know exactly how to handle myself in that situation. I don't have any special skill there.
Conclusion and Call to Action
00:13:38
Speaker
I only know what I went through, but my hope would be that being forewarned is being forearmed and that perhaps one person may handle themselves in that situation better than I did. Well, if you enjoyed today's episode,
00:13:54
Speaker
I hope you'll subscribe and give the Abundant Vision Fundraising Podcast a five-star rating on your podcast provider. Thanks for joining me, Tom Dauber, on the journey to Major Gift Mastery on the Abundant Vision Fundraising Podcast.