A not for profit organisation is offered funding for a community project involving youth and supported by Police. The funding is offered by a "colourful" identity who is reputed to be involved in criminal activity but as far as is known has not been found guilty of any crime.

What are the issues?

What should the not for profit do?

Mr colourful wants to market crystal meth to the bottom rung - the not for profit group perhaps could ask for a cut and use the money for drug rehabilitation programs?

Not for profits include all kinds of organisations. What is its charter? Is it charitable, or activist, or public service, or educational? A lot of colourful characters have money on which is written

"Legal tender for all debts public and private".

If the Plod are in it, its enough to give you cover: "Maaate, I thought he was legit, you know?"

The not for profit is a registered charity and is involved with programs for youth to try and overcome disadvantage.

One issue I see is Mr Colourful may have a reputation but is it warranted?

What are the ethics of asking the Police about Mr Colourful.

If the Police are satisfied that Mr Colourful is just that and not criminal should his money be accepted.

So let's assume that the not-for-profit is doing something we agree is ethical (i.e. a youth education centre or whatever). If they are doing something unethical, they shouldn't do it, no matter where the money is coming from.

So does the source of the money "taint" or change the moral-ness of what the not-for-profit is trying to achieve? Or is it in fact a good thing that money from a colourful character, by which let us say that it is coming from an unethical revenue source, is now going to an ethical place?

Is the not-for-profit perpetuating or enabling the unethical business of Mr Colourful? If yes, then it is unethical to take the money, because they would be part of creating unethical actions. If no, then perhaps it is not such a problem - I assume Mr Colourful's money is going to go somewhere, and it might as well go somewhere ethical.

How might the not-for-profit enable Mr Colourful's unethical business? Well, let's not assume that he places corrupt people in the not-for-profit - he is solely a source of funding and has no say, influence etc. whatsoever. But he might really like this not-for-profit idea and so want to create more revenue for it, which means that he will continue carry out his nefarious business practices with the not-for-profit as a reason. I don't know if the ethical/unethical business practices "balance out" in some mathematical way, but if there is a direct correlation between the two, I would say that it is not ethical to take the money.

I don’t think that money becomes tainted in itself. I don’t think a charity need turn down money from a donor who earned it unethically purely because it was unethically earned, any more than an ethical vegetarian should decline to eat with a fork that someone else once used to eat meat.

But I do think we need to ask ourselves why this dodgy character is offering us the money. It may be a charitable donation, but even charitable donations give something back to the donor, if only self-respect, self-esteem and the gratifying sense of having done something virtuous. And they may give more back; recognition, social status, and enhanced reputation. That’s why some big donors like to have things named after them. The McDonalds Restaurants Company gives enormous sums every year to the Ronald McDonald Foundation which supports the families of sick children and that’s a good and virtuous thing and long may they continue doing it, but we must acknowledge that part of the reason why they do it is that they expect a commercial advantage to accrue to the company.

So I suppose one of the things that the charity should be asking is, is this bloke attempting to buy some kind of respectability or social redemption from us? And is he doing this in order to have some kind of cover under which to continue with his less socially beneficial activities? And, if this is so, do we really want to sell him what he is trying to buy?

But those are difficult questions to answer with any degree of certainty.