Toward Professionalization: Fund Raising Norms and Their Implications for Practice
- PDF / 118,773 Bytes
- 16 Pages / 482 x 720 pts Page_size
- 62 Downloads / 189 Views
Toward Professionalization: Fund Raising Norms and Their Implications for Practice Received (in revised form): March 5, 2003
Timothy C. Caboni Timothy C. Caboni is a Lecturer in Public Policy and Higher Education, and director of the institutional advancement program in the Department of Leadership, Policy and Organizations at Peabody College, Vanderbilt University.
Abstract This article outlines the core traits of professions and discusses the extent to which fund raising possesses these traits. Three inviolable and six admonitory normative patterns of fund-raising behavior are described and their implications for the practice of fund raising are discussed. This article reexamines the fund-raising profession in comparison with the markers of true professions as suggested in the sociological literature. First, the core traits of professions and their relationship to fund raising is examined. Second, professional self-regulation is discussed. Third, the informal norms that fund raisers use to self-regulate are described. Finally, the importance of these norms to the profession and their use for practitioners is outlined.
Author’s Contact Address: Dr. Timothy C. Caboni Dept of Leadership, Policy & Organizations Peabody College, Vanderbilt University Box 514, GPC Nashville, TN, 37203, USA Tel: +1 615 343 2493 Fax: +1 615 343 7377 Email: [email protected]
Keywords: Fund raising, professional characteristics, professionalism, professional ethics, fund-raising norms
Sociological Inquiry and Professions Carr-Saunders and Wilson outlined the historical progression of professions in Great Britain over two centuries.1 Within their work emerges the notion that a profession is defined by its members having a set of specialized skills, charging set fees, having a professional association and a code of ethics. Since the 1933 study by Carr-Saunders and Wilson, the study of professions has remained an important part of sociological inquiry. There are certain attributes by which one can determine if an occupation is a profession. Greenwood describes five attributes that are possessed by an ideal profession.2 First, it will have a body of systematic theory on which it draws. This body of knowledge requires an extensive period of training. Second, its professional authority is recognized by the profession’s clients. In the client/professional relationship, the client believes that what the professional judges to be appropriate
THE CASE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF EDUCATIONAL ADVANCEMENT. VOL.4 NO.1 77–92 ª COUNCIL FOR ADVANCEMENT & SUPPORT OF EDUCATION/HENRY STEWART PUBLICATIONS 2003. ISSN 1467-3657.
77
Timothy C. Caboni
should not be questioned. Professionals, because of their extensive training (and because the client does not possess that training), are perceived as knowing what is best for the client. Third, the community at large agrees that the profession has this authority. Fourth, a profession will have a code of ethics that is used by members of a profession to self-regulate their behavior. Finally, a profession
Data Loading...
