Category: Compliance

NGOs and Compliance Risk – A Road Paved with Good Intentions

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Picture - Road paved with good intentions - Compliance riskA road paved with good intentions! …. When it comes to compliance, are good intentions enough?  The following blog was written for the Compliance Channel, a web TV channel and best practice showroom for ethics and compliance issues.  If you have any comments or opinions on the topic I’d love to hear them.

Are good intentions enough?

Despite their good intentions, when it comes to compliance and the NGO sector, scratch the surface too much and what you see may not necessarily be what you get.  Although ranked as the most trusted sector in the world, NGOs and charities (as with any other organisation) are not immune from compliance risks.  If anything the complexity of the environment they operate in make it even more challenging, as at the heart are a number of unique internal and external compliance risks. More

How to create a robust Anti-Corruption Framework (Part 1)

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Corruption - Picture of ace of spades playing cardIs your corruption prevention program going to deal you a winning hand, or will it collapse like a house of cards?  In today’s increasingly complex global environment, it’s no longer a question of whether an organisation has an anti-corruption framework in place, but how robust that framework actually is.  Corruption prevention and compliance programmes that fail to stand up to scrutiny when stress-tested, can have significant and far-reaching consequences.

In Part 1 of this two-part series, I’ll outline the essential building blocks that should be included in an effective anti-corruption framework.

How a failure to prevent corruption by employees led to a US$772 million penalty

While the resources needed to develop a robust corruption prevention framework may seem significant, the financial risks of not investing are even higher.  First and foremost are the direct financial and reputational losses caused by the act itself. This is highlighted by the ACFE’s annual global fraud surveys, which consistently estimate that the typical organisation loses 5% of its annual revenue to fraud alone. More

10 corruption risks keeping charities / NGOs awake at night

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Photo of man sleepless over corruptionWorking for a charity or NGO? Getting enough sleep at night? If you’ve answered ‘yes’ to both these questions, then you should be asking yourself how much you really know about corruption risks within the non-profit sector.

The following article was subsequently published by Pro bono Australia.  Titled ’10 Corruption Risks Keeping NFPs awake at night’, it appeared in their Hot Topics section on 15 October 2015.

While Charities are the most trusted institutions in the world …

I’m always surprised when talking with people working in the charity/NGO sectors, at how little many of them know about the inherent corruption risks facing their industry.  While consistently ranked as the most trusted institutions’ globally (topping the Edelman Trust Barometer for the last seven years in a row), the sector faces a number of inherent vulnerabilities that significantly raises its overall corruption risk ranking.  Having a knowledge of these is essential if a charity/NGO is to put an appropriate risk mitigation strategy in place. More