Charity

Is the Charity I support or work for immune to risk?

 

How can I ensure that the trustees and people that work with me are aware of the legislation and regulations that impact the organisation?

Many Charities across the World are wrestling with the legislation and directives from regulators and authorities they are obliged to meet. Failure to do this effectively is costing some charities greatly in a loss of funding and in reputation.

Here we include just a few examples where the Charities probably believed they were doing a reasonable job. The trustees and staff were impacted by a few people who “stepped across the line” bringing shame and significant harm to the Charity workers and, perhaps even worse, the people they were set up to help

 

Oxfam to lay off 100 people following aid worker sex scandal

Oxfam is to make 100 staff redundant in Britain after the sexual exploitation scandal in Haiti led to a drop in the funding the charity receives. In addition to agreeing not to bid for money from the Department for International Development (DFID), which gave Oxfam about £30M per year, a number of other high-profile donors have paused their funding until they receive further assurances from the charity on how it will prevent sexual misconduct.
Oxfam was forced to deny covering up the use of prostitutes by its aid workers in Haiti.
Due to the reduction in funding, Oxfam has said it would now have to “live within its means” and will be laying off approximately 100 of its 2,000 members of staff.

100 people, innocent of any wrong doing, lose their jobs. Would the impact have been as great if Oxfam had been able to routinely monitor that the procedures they had defined and the “measures adopted” within the organisation were correct?

 

EverydayComply provides for the recording of assessment data and enables an organisation’s management to monitor teams and individuals remotely and as often as they feel necessary

Head of Age Concern branch who stole £700,000 from charity jailed

The Chief Executive of an Age Concern branch has been jailed for seven years for pocketing a “breath-taking” £700,000 of the charity’s money. John Briers, 57, was taking up to 20% of the South Tyneside branch’s annual gross income during his eight-and-a-half year fraud, Newcastle Crown Court heard. He wrote himself 60 cheques, gave himself 11 unauthorised bonuses and pension top-ups and used fear to stop staff investigating too closely as to what was happening at the branch.
Graham Cassidy who challenged Briers when he spotted a false invoice, told the court the fraud has left the branch struggling despite being rebranded. In a victim statement, Mr Cassidy, who is the new CEO, said the charity has lost £250,000 in donations, elderly users of the service have been made to worry about whether it could continue its work and six staff have been made redundant. The court heard the total cost to the branch was more than £500,000 as well as damage to its reputation

 

Eight-and-a half years is a long time. Clearly the individual concerned ignored any procedures defined to prevent such an occurrence throughout this period

 

A very costly omission for the Charity that could easily have been spotted earlier by using the EverydayComply solution to identify gaps in accounting procedures and high light potential risk areas

 

EverydayComply Assessment benefits

 

• General risk management – Identify areas that could put your organisation and your employees at risk and solve these potential problem areas before they have an adverse effect on the business
• Provides detailed evidence demonstrating that your staff are fully aware of their responsibilities in the event of any legislative challenges to the organisation
• Ensure that every member of your staff understand their responsibilities, both legal and commercial
• Identify problem areas where extra training may be required
  • Improve quality and effectiveness of any training given
  • Look for patterns in results across your entire organisation, high-lighting potential risk areas
• Record historical records for all assessments taken
• Build a history of empirical data, an individual cannot claim to not understand or know something when he/she has documented their understanding on a number of separate assessments – protecting your organisation as a whole
  • Seek patterns in an individual or team – Are the same team failing the assessments in the same area of knowledge? – Are there gaps in your policies or procedures or training that need to be addressed to compensate for these failings? – Is there a management issue to address?
  • Record trends against an individual or team – Identify problems before they happen allowing you to improve and protect your organisation as a whole
• Help management at every level of your organisation keep their team and employees safe and secure