Charitable Intent
Non-profits that don't follow their donors' wishes may end up in court.
March 31, 2006 at 07:00 PM
7 minute read
A lot of people won't give panhandlers money if they think they will spend it on booze. But they will hand over their pocket change if the recipient promises to spend it on a hot meal. The panhandlers know this. So do charity fundraisers, who instinctively agree to spend contribution money on the things donors say they want. But what happens if, like the panhandler who buys a beer instead of a meal with your dollar, a local food bank spends your dollar on training instead of feeding a hungry person?
In both cases your “donor intent” was thwarted. You gave money for one reason, and the recipient used it for another. Can you sue? Clearly, you wouldn't sue a homeless person for buying a beer, but increasingly donors are using the courts to force the food bank to feed the hungry.
Such donor-intent lawsuits are a problem for non-profits because each lawsuit always gets lots of attention in a “man bites dog” sort of way, as in “Why is the do-gooder charity being sued?” And lawmakers tend to listen to donors' complaints because there are more donors than charities. The big question now is not whether charities will have to respect donor intent, but rather whether courts or lawmakers take the lead in forcing them to do so.
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