A fundraising event session, at which the Chartered Institute of Fundraising’s (CIoF) chief executive was due to speak, has been cancelled by organisers after its “hot mess” title was criticised on social media.
CIoF’s CEO, Katie Docherty, was due to speak at a session titled “Leadership challenges in tough times: how to navigate through hot messes” at the Fundraising Institute of Australia (FIA) Conference in Sydney in February 2025.
It is understood that Docherty and another sector leader, Roger D. Ali, the global chair of the US-based Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP), were set to discuss their experiences of tackling “significant leadership challenges” in their respective roles, according to the previous session description.
These “challenges” appeared to relate to how Docherty navigated the multiple recent sexual assault and harassment allegations faced by the CIoF, and to how Ali tackled the “fallout of systemic Black racism within the professional fundraising body in North America” at the AFP.
However, after criticism on social media, CIoF issued a public apology and the session title was changed before being cancelled altogether.
This follows the long-awaited publication of an investigation into CIoF’s response to historic sexual harassment allegations last month.
Social media criticism
The title and session description quickly came under fire on social media, with one person describing the title, in particular, as “wildly inappropriate and disrespectful”.
Criticism was especially aimed at the title’s inclusion of the phrase “hot mess”, which typically denotes a person or an object that looks spectacular while remaining highly disordered, and, as one critic argues, may be often used to describe women.
“It certainly reinforces my opinion that CIoF hasn’t made the deep change necessary to be a safe place, despite the lip-service being paid,” said the same critic in a LinkedIn post responding to the controversy.
CIoF apology and session cancellation
Following the online criticism, Docherty and CIoF chair Harpreet Kondel issued a public apology on 5 October, which said they had asked for the session title to be changed.
The statement reads: “We understand and agree that the title of the session and the synopsis was completely inappropriate and requested that it was changed.
“We wish to extend our thanks to the FIA for making this change, and for understanding the reasons why this needed to be done.
“This is something we should have recognised as inappropriate before it was published.
“It is Katie’s intention to speak about transparency and openness in leadership, and the duty of care the Chartered Institute of Fundraising has to our community to do what we can to stamp out systemic sexism in the sector and dismantle the patriarchy which currently exists.
“This is an ongoing issue, and safeguarding remains the number one priority for the Chartered Institute of Fundraising.
“We know that as an organisation we failed to protect and support our community in the past, and that is something we deeply regret.”
The FIA initially renamed the session and edited its description but has since cancelled it entirely, with Docherty and Ali removed as speakers at the conference.
An FIA spokesperson confirmed: “We’ve cancelled that session and will not be replacing it with a similar session; at this point, neither Katie Docherty nor Roger Ali are scheduled to speak in any other session at Conference 2025 in Sydney.”
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