Nonprofits Insurance Alliance

members and growing

When #MeToo Comes to the Nonprofit Workplace

It’s hard to ignore the plethora of revelations of sexual harassment incidents involving well-known public figures being revealed in the news recently.

It’s also difficult to ignore the grassroots social movement that resulted – the #MeToo campaign, originally started by consultant, blogger and advocate Tarana Burke over 10 years ago, and recently popularized with a tweet by actress Alyssa Milano that garnered more than 35,000 direct responses on its first day. From there, the hashtag quickly spread across multiple social media platforms and grew immensely in participation, with individuals all over the world chiming in to share their stories of harassment and assault, or simply posting #MeToo. To say the trend is viral is an understatement – people are speaking up, and they’re doing so publicly.

What you may not know is that the number of harassment complaints nonprofits have been receiving has increased as well. These complaints run the gamut from anonymous emails reporting decades old alleged transgressions to the reporting of current serious ongoing harassment of current employees by their supervisors. Sexual harassment is a serious issue and it is incumbent upon every nonprofit to do what it can to minimize the risk of these types of incidents from occurring.

At the Nonprofit Insurance Alliance Group, we have many free tools to assist our members in addressing these risks. The following resources are available to our nonprofit members when faced either with a current complaint of sexual harassment in the workplace, or to educate your workforce in mitigating the potential risk of sexual harassment becoming an issue.

  • Free recorded webinar on Preventing Sexual Harassment and Abuse Conduct in the Workplace, which can be accessed
  • Free recorded webinar on Conducting Internal Investigations, which can be accessed
  • Members with a current Directors and Officers policy (which includes Employment Practices Liability) can take advantage of free unlimited Employment Consultations. Labor & Employment Risk Managers (LERMS) can assist members in understanding best practices for establishing a harassment free workplace, including sample policies and recommended training; the processing of a complaint of harassment, including internal or external investigation and assessing risk; and possible steps to remedy the situation. Information on how to request a consultation can be found here.
  • Free Sexual Harassment Prevention Training for Supervisors, available for nonprofit members in Connecticut and California where such training is legally mandated. Additional information can be found here.
  • Training brochures for nonprofit staff working with youth, entitled “Supervision of Children and Teens Never Includes Sex,” which is available

In addition to these resources, you should confirm with your nonprofit’s insurance broker that you have sufficient Employment Practices Liability (EPLI) insurance coverage under a Directors & Officers (D&O) insurance policy, and/or Improper Sexual Conduct (ISC) coverage, if you are exposed to risk in this area.

Making these tools available should help create a healthy and respective environment at your nonprofit, minimize the likelihood of a #MeToo incident from occurring, and assist you in responding if such an incident does occur.

Claims That Could Have Been Avoided: The Ill Effects of Poor Communication

A lack of communication can be detrimental to businesses and organizations alike, as well as the working relationship between employees, as it elevates stress levels and undermines confidence. However, as one nonprofit learned, that’s not the full extent of the damage that can result from poor communication. Poor or absent communication can end up costing tens of thousands of dollars. To learn just how damaging it can be, read below for one nonprofit’s experience.

The Claim

A nonprofit offering recovery services hired a short-term, part-time employee to their staff. The employee was given a verbal offer, as opposed to a written offer letter, and was under the impression that she would be in a position that would receive supervised hours, which she needed in order to obtain a professional license. Instead, the insured had hired her into a position that did not have the desired supervision, as she had understood. Once the employee began work, she complained that she was not being supervised, but nothing was done because she had been hired into a role that did not include supervised hours. Additionally, she objected to the client medication dispensing procedures and refused to perform this function.

After being employed for a mere six weeks and working just 48 hours, the employee’s job was terminated because: 1. the nonprofit could not give her the supervised hours that she desired and; 2. she refused to follow the medication procedures, which the nonprofit labeled insubordination. The employee responded by filing a complaint against the nonprofit with the professional licensing board, followed by a lawsuit in State Court. Although the claim relating to the employee’s lack of supervision had no merit, the suit brought several issues to light regarding the propriety of the nonprofit’s medication procedures, which ultimately supported the plaintiff’s claim of retaliation for whistleblowing. In the end, the nonprofit settled with the former employee for a significant amount of money, even though she had earned very little during her employment.

Lessons Learned

This claim likely could have been avoided if proper communication had been utilized at the outset of the hiring process. The expectations of the position should have been clearly communicated to the employee in a job description listing essential job functions with a written job offer establishing the terms of the employment.  If this had been done, the employee may not have accepted the job to begin with, or would have understood that professional supervision was not being offered so there would not have been the unmet expectation that motivated her filing suit. Written documentation would have supported the nonprofit’s hiring intent.

Additionally, the nonprofit should have investigated the concerns expressed by the employee to determine if proper medication procedures were being followed, rather than dismiss her objections as insubordination. Had it done so, the nonprofit would have been able to correct the internal errors and it would most likely have avoided liability. In essence, the lack of communication ended up costing tens of thousands of dollars, and hours of staff time, which far exceeds the staff costs associated with drafting clear on-boarding documentation and conducting an investigation into complaints related to operational compliance.

Learn More