Dilemma: Right vs. Right
Divulge the Past, or Let Proposal Stand on Its Own?
Henry is a staff person for the Alores County Community Foundation. The Education for All organization, a local nonprofit providing modest grants to innovative teachers, is applying to a large private foundation for funding. The program officer from the private foundation asks Henry to read over the Education for All proposal he has received, and to "fill him in" on the organization’s background.
Having once made a small grant to Education for All, Henry is aware that the organization’s financial health has always been dependent on a few major donors, several of whom are quite elderly, and a charismatic director who cultivated those relationships. This person is still associated with the organization, though no longer a paid staff person. The new director is a professional experienced in nonprofit management but still, in Henry’s opinion, the long-term financial health of the organization is fragile at best.
The Education for All proposal to the private foundation calls for the organization to start several new programs and increase staffing. The details about the new programs provided in the proposal are quite marginal.
Should Henry tell the program officer all that he knows about Education for All? Or should he reserve his comments to the proposal itself? Should he even read the proposal at all?
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