Small-time & Big-time Whistleblowers, Trump, and Nonprofits

Small-time & Big-time Whistleblowers, Trump, and Nonprofits

Whistleblowers that receive significant public attention address issues that affect large swathes of the population.  Think of the hundreds of millions of people whose personal information was captured by the NSA (Snowden), the many thousands who lost their savings in the crash of WorldCom (Cooper) or Enron (Watkins), and the millions affected by the deceptions that fueled the war in Vietnam (Ellsberg).  These big-time whistleblowers often disclose wrongs that have international scope (Manning) or that elicit visceral responses (Wetta).

Small-time whistleblowers, like me, identify wrongs that affect few people and do not involve many millions of dollars.  Small-time wrongs are violations – sometimes called petty by their perpetrators – of specific laws and contract provisions, not lofty issues like violations of personal privacy (Snowden) or deceptive government communications (Ellsberg and Manning).  But small-time whistleblowers far outnumber big-time whistleblowers.  In 2014 The Network, which provides whistleblower hotline services for companies, reported that 1% of its clients’ employees reported wrongs – about half of them anonymously – through its service.  By this measure, more than 1 million individuals blow the whistle on wrongs they believe were done by their employers in the U.S. each year.

Consider the possible implications of this widespread whistleblowing in other parts of our society.  Consider Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.  Trump has been condemned as boorish, and his policy proposals have been criticized as lacking in specifics, impractical, unrealistic, or irresponsible.  Yet he continues to climb in polls relative to his likely opponent, Hilary Clinton.

Imagine a potential whistleblower within Trump’s camp.  Like Ellsberg who saw that Nixon’s administration was going down a destructive path in Vietnam, Trump’s analyst speaks up to warn him that his tactics are divisive, disrespectful, and sometimes deceitful.  She encourages him to be less crude and to think through his strategies in order to succeed in the general election.  Trump replies that his approach is working great and she is an idiot on his payroll.

Having tried to change his course from within the organization, she turns outside.  Surreptitiously she approaches Trump’s financial backers and her contacts in the media.  They, too, are unimpressed by her analysis.  Like Trump, they are well aware that his rude behavior and chuckleheaded policies suit his unconventional, tell-it-straight approach that is clearly succeeding.  Trump responds to her betrayal by firing her.  Her whistleblowing is, of course, not protected; feeling as she did, perhaps she should have quit the Trump campaign anyway.

Next, consider the world of nonprofits.  Charitable giving is sometimes criticized as wasteful, and charities are too often ineffective or little more than fund-raising shams.  Still, donors like to suppose that their chosen charities are valuable and effective, and charitable giving continues to increase. 

Imagine a potential whistleblower in a nonprofit company.  She was attracted to the organization by its promise to end homelessness through work or other services or to cut poverty in half or eliminate it entirely.  In her years with the company, though, homelessness and poverty continued unabated.  Despite its data-driven strategic plan, the company failed to disclose the results of its services in a way that would enable anyone to judge how effective it was in achieving meaningful results.  She believes that its financial statements are distorted to entice potential donors.

Similar to the Trump analyst, she might argue that the company's mission is misleading and its performance measurements are deceptive.  Her CEO then points out that the company’s communication program is very successful.  When she approaches others, they are indifferent because nearly all nonprofits operate similarly; nonprofits are presumed to do good work even if they are not overly precise in their communications.  She betrayed the company by trying to undermine its fund-raising efforts, and she is fired.

The imagined Trump analyst and nonprofit employee are not whistleblowers in the mold of Snowden, Ellsberg, or other big-time whistleblowers.  They might not even be included among the smaller-time million whistleblowers who report on the misdeeds of their employers each year in the U.S.  But like other whistleblowers – and regular people who feel free to speak their minds – they objected to what they perceived to be wrong.