Received best practice wisdom in fundraising says you should always put the donor at the heart of everything you do. This is the core idea of ‘donor-centred’ fundraising (or donorcentrism) that underpins relationship fundraising. But can donorcentrism go too far? And does it lead to issues of so-called ‘donor dominance’.

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‘Donor dominance’ refers to any serious form of undue or inappropriate influence that a donor or group of donors exerts over a nonprofit organisation or its staff. These issues were brought out into the open in 2018.

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First there was the scandal of the Presidents Club fundraising dinner when an undercover journalist exposed totally unacceptable behaviour by male guests. And later in the year, a survey carried out by the Association of Fundraising Professionals and the Chronicle of Philanthropy in the USA found that a quarter of female fundraisers had faced sexual harassment at work and of these, 65 per cent said at least one offender was a donor.

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Rogare is currently researching this topic in a project led by American fundraiser Heather Hill, chair of the Rogare board. This involves conceptualising the issue and surveying fundraising practitioners to ascertain how much and how widespread these issues are.