Today’s story out of Detroit opens an interesting dilemma regarding transparency and charity. The city rightly wants both for its fire department, but a new policy seems to be putting these things at cross purposes.
In short, the policy requires any donations to the fire department go either through the nonprofit Detroit Public Safety Foundation or the city council. Individual firehouses can no longer accept donations.
From an administrative standpoint, that seems perfectly reasonable. To avoid the appearance of or actual corruption, gifts need to be accounted for. That’s just ethics 101.
The story focuses on a woman who has devoted a great deal of energy to raise money and supplies for her neighborhood fire station — in memory of her late son. That’s a great and compelling story for several reasons, one being that it demonstrates how communities overcome crises — this one being more chronic than acute.
Yet if the system allows this woman to donate cleaning and hygiene supplies, or the money to buy them, would it also allow a shady business owner to donate a car or the cash to buy one to a favorite fire inspector? And if someone can make such donations to a fire inspector, why not to a cop?
You see how quickly this slope becomes slippery.
The real trick for Detroit and other fire departments is finding that sweet spot that encourages community generosity while preserving the institution’s integrity. It doesn’t seem like Detroit is there yet.
Never mind the news reporter’s grandstanding as she was banging on about not being able to give firefighters cookies. The city needs to revisit the policy to ensure that people who want to give can do so with little-to-no hassle. Otherwise, they will take their donations elsewhere.
The city needs to understand that those who want to give want an element of control over that gift — in this case choosing which fire station to help. The city also needs to set a limit for what level of donation triggers a reporting requirement; different levels of transparency can be set for different value ranges of gifts.
If they don’t get that balance right, their quest for transparency will cut off their supply of goodwill, to say nothing of soap and toilet paper.
