Had a "talking to" at work yesterday...

:(One of my company's (I work for a very large well known company) business partners decided to donate a large amount of $$ for a charity ride that I am fundraising for and I guess some other business partners found out and didn't exactly like it. They thought the company that donated was trying to buy more of our business which is totally not the case. The President of the company who donated is an avid cyclist and also has an illness which would prompt her to donate. She does rides like this all the time. They were trying to do something good, support a cause, and help me out! Now other members of the company that donated have been banned from donating to my cause... I guess the issue was with the amount that was donated. I had no idea she was going to donate so much, nor did I have any control over that.

Did I do something wrong? Is this an ethics thing that I am missing? They donated to charity, not to me directly!

Possibly. I've copied this from our corporate policies for requests. The recipient has to make sure they aren't crossing any lines either.

Recipient Relationship:

Is the recipient or an affiliate of the recipient currently a ________ customer?
Have we negotiated or proposed a business relationship with recipient or an affiliate within the last six months?
Will we be negotiating or proposing such a business relationship (this includes the renewal or expansion of an existing relationship) in the next six months?

I couldn't solicit that sort of thing from customers, that's for certain.

They are not a customer. We are a customer of theirs and I didn't solicit anything. My business contact asked to help! I had no idea he was going to take it up to the President of his company.

Thanks for your responses!

Different companies have different policies on this. I work in a University, and our dept. chair asked us to not solicit donations for charity rides, etc. at work. He worried perhaps our students and subordinates would feel undue pressure.

I do not think you violated any ethical boundary, but perhaps your employer needs to set very specific and clear policy on this type of activity.