Is this ethical? Redundancy. Fundraiser for charity.

Hello!

I don't know how unusual my problem is. I've been the fundraiser for a national charity for 6 years, which has been operating at a loss for at least 12 years and the Trustees have never really done anything constructive to address it. The income is there, but they operate above their means.

A new Director took over 2 years ago who is also a fundraiser and it became quite clear that he felt threatened by me. He told me straight away that he would do large applications and fundraise for the regional offices in the future and he has never said anything to the contrary so this arrangment is still in place as far as I'm concerned. He likes to take credit for money that he has brought in (he's very insecure as a person), but the accounts show that in the first year he took over the income dropped by £77,000. I think the last financial year is just as bad.

Not only have I had to endure 2 years of having parts of my job slowly taken away from me or hampered by him, but in the past 12 months he has made subtle comments like fundraising is not in my 'comfort zone' or we need to play to my strengths (resource design) meaning that fundraising is a weakness. I took up resource design and development as a way to fill my time as he had reduced my job by so much. What made matters worse was that last year the recession really hit the little bit of fundraising I could do and I didn't raise much at all. However in the past 4 months things have picked up and I have raised nearly £15,000.

Now the charity is in dire straits and last Friday he read out an official statement to the team that cost cutting would have to be done. We all knew that the statement had not been written by him as it was too professional sounding. Then we had individual meetings with him. Funded people were told that their jobs were safe. Non funded posts (like mine) or partially funded posts were told that they had to think of ways to fund their salary to keep their jobs.

One woman was told she had to secure £10,000 in 6 weeks or go part time. She came up with ideas for this and he has already stepped in on closing any deals so he gets the credit. This woman is another person he has bullied for 2 years.

I was given less than a week to come up with ideas to re-define my role to make it more fundable. He said he'd like to hire me on a contractual basis, project by project to design resources. I told him that in this financial year (which began 1st March 2010) I had already brought in enough money allocated to resource design to fund my post for at least 4 months. I got no response.

Today he sent me an email telling me that I had to submit to him by end of day tomorrow my proposals to "retain the Fundraisers post" which is NOT what he said to me originally.

I am convinced that he has already made me redundant in his head and is going to obstruct anything I come up with. He is also doing the same with this other woman.

He has had months to come up with ideas to cut costs and he has to report back to the Trustees with his solutions by the end of May. The whole team is convinced that he has not come up with anything so he is expecting us to do it for him. We reckon he will then take the ideas to the Trustees and take credit for them himself.

Is what he is doing ethical / legal? What is my next step, given that I know he wants to make me redundant?

Thanks for any help you can give me. Staff here are very disheartened and shocked.

Nothing illegal, not so far anyway. Doesn't sound like he's handling things particularly well obviously. I think as and when you are made redundant, you could then consider appealing it as unfair dismissal on the grounds that you were not given enough time or opportunity to put forward proposals, and also include anything that happened outside of a reasonable redundancy procedure.

But you need to see what happens first, see whether you are made redundant, see what information/reasons you are given and procedure followed before you can decide how to react. As you have been told you are at risk of redundancy you are in a consultation period, so check they are doing everything they should with regards to redundancy consultation.

Have you done anything to address his behaviour over the last few months with regard to taking parts of your job away or anything? That could potentially be relevant but if you've not raised these things as issues previously it makes it more difficult to include them.

Thanks for your help, much appreciated.

To be honest, I don't mind leaving. I've been job hunting (with no success so far as there are so many unfortunate unemployed people who can start straight away) and it would be a relief to be made redundant. The place has been hell for the past 2 years.

My annual assessment was due in March and I was going to request that I have it with a Trustee instead of him so I could air my complaints about his behaviour. Like I said, I'm not the only person he bullies. Anyway, that hasn't happened what with the financial difficulties so I intend to email all of the Trustees tomorrow. Even if I go I'd like to think that I did something to make my colleagues life better and help to save the charity.

I don't mind leaving, but I'm not going without a fight and I won't be made the scapegoat for the financial situation. I was made redundant in my previous job so know the routine and will probably negotiate a compromise agreement. I know a hell of a lot about their mismanagement of grants which the Charity Commission and various government departments who gave us the grants would be interested in.

One thing the Director and Trustees don't want is external people sniffing around. They get petrified at the slightest mention of staff suing them.

The good thing is that I have a couple of other volunteer projects on the go and it would free up time to focus on them and maybe create a job for myself.

Once again, thanks for your help!