Ethical Issues In Nonprofit Organizations

There are many reasons why ethical problems continues to be ignored and one of the most obvious is based off money solely and how much money an organization can profit for the company itself and to fatten their pockets. In a nonprofit organization, the board of directors are completely liable for any actions that are taken by any employee or volunteer, under their command. This includes the CEO and the CFO. It does not matter, if the actions were made as a direction of the board, or not. A Code of Ethics/ Code of Conduct or Ethics and Compliance program are only as good as the persons for which that they apply. Organizational culture is also; only as good as the persons for which they apply Enron, Tyco, and WorldCom are all memorable. These scandals happened in 2001 and 2002.

There were several more and there will undoubtedly be many more to come. This is not to say that there have been no ethics scandals at nonprofit organizations, because there have been, perhaps not as many. Organizational culture is the leading reason for these ethical problems. In for-profit organizations, there are two levels of misconduct. The first is at the lower levels. This is because there can be such an emphasis placed on making the most profits, most sales, etc. This can lead to unethical behavior, especially when management purposely overlooks it, most of the time, so that the managers can collect their bonuses. In upper management and in companies that do bring in an enormous amount of income, these managers tend to be swayed into believing that if they take money, no one will notice. On the other hand, if they have salaries that are staggering, they deserve it, because of egos that tell them so. Monies from the companies can often go into, their homes, cars, planes, vacations,