An Outright Gift?
(Added 8/12/2009)
My job is to solicit planned gifts, specifically deferred gifts, but a few weeks ago my boss actually my boss's boss - told me that I needed to forget about asking people for estate and other deferred commitments and begin concentrating on asking people for outright gifts instead. He said we need the money now and, because of our financial situation, we don't have the luxury to wait until later. He said to first talk to the people who were considering a planned gift because "they're the ones that are most ready." Aside from being asked to do a job I wasn't hired to do, I wonder about the ethics of the bait and switch tactic he is encouraging me to employ.
While I sympathize with your sense of job responsibility, you must understand that there is nothing unethical about what your employer as asking you to do. Right now, many charities are in your situation and they are doing what they feel they need to do to keep their cash flows and programs afloat.
One category of conflict within the world ethical dilemmas is that of right vs. right; in this case, I'd say the dilemma is that of weighing long-term consequences and short-term consequences. Each is a real concern and each is ethical. While it would be nice for you to be able to speak only to people about deferred commitments, bequests in particular - and these days, especially, that's a wonderful, and wonderfully safe, conversation you are part of a larger concern and your job is to take part in whatever way the development office deems necessary.
That is not to say that a program designed to solicit deferred gifts is a luxury. Even though the tangible support from deferred commitments can be measured only in future terms, the future is real; it is coming. It has already come for donors who made planned gifts long ago and charities are today reaping the benefit of those gifts; they are providing needed resources.
Deferred gift donors are important and many donors, even armed with loyalty and donative intent, simply don't have the capacity to give now. But while your instincts have honorable roots, playing them out without taking into consideration the whole picture would be detrimental to your organization. Your boss is asking you to do nothing improper.