APRA-IN Message Board

[Forum Admin]

Just throwing this out there to the crickets and lurkers...

The very first principal in the APRA fundamental principals provides as follows:

Confidential information about constituents (donors and non-donors), as well as confidential information of the institutions in oral form or on electronic, magnetic, or print media are protected in order to foster a trusting relationship between the constituent and the institution. This means that the information is not available for anyone except development professionals, and their agents, to see.

Now, I understand confidentiality is important. In the legal arena, for instance, there are very few exceptions to the rule of confidentiality between an attorney and his client. Whatever a client tells his attorney is sacrosanct and even the highest court in the land can not force the attorney to share the things they discuss...with a few limited exceptions. (e.g. don't tell your attorney that you're about to rob a bank...there is no protection for sharing your intent to commit a crime)

The purpose of confidentiality in that context is to better defend the accused. A client MUST be able to trust his/her lawyer so that ALL relevant information is shared and the best defense possible can be given. It is then up to the attorney to determine what information is important, and what can be shared for the best results.

It seems to me that at first glance, this particular principal is geared towards the same ends. If a constituent knows what he shares will be kept from the world at large, he/she will be more willing to trust the organization with personal information that serves complementing goals. But how far does this analogy really extend?

How much "trust" does a constituent place in the organizations to which he/she contributes? Is there any more "trust" required than what is shared with Amazon when conducting an online consumer transaction? Or perhaps more dubiously, does the "trust" element only come into play once the organization has gathered information, on its own?