Taking Gifts
Like taking funds for personal use, accepting personal gifts should be forbidden. Enact a policy prohibiting the acceptance of personal gifts or the use of resources intended for the organization. This kind of policy can be hard to monitor, but numerous organizations fall prey to the mishandling of such contributions, so it is worth including in your code of conduct.
Establishing clear policies from the beginning can help avoid temptation later. Be as detailed as possible when setting up guidelines so people understand the level of conduct expected of them. This will go a long way toward ensuring the organization conducts itself with integrity long into the future.
In addition, a nonprofit group may be in a situation to receive special discounts, services, and other perks; these are not for personal use. Volunteers are not entitled to a car, computer, or other organizational resources because of the time they have put into the organization. This includes the $300 someone spent on personal long-distance phone calls made from an organization's headquarters.
Every organization will have situations where people take advantage — they're hard to prevent. One trusted employee at a nonprofit professional organization manipulated members' checks to make them appear as though they were made out to him, and then deposited them into his personal account. The organization instituted stringent policies for handling member donations, and of course, the individual stepped down from the organization. That said, experts say most organizations conduct themselves with integrity and spend the funds raised in keeping with the organizations' intended mission.
