Enhancing Trust and Integrity

The Tension There is a measurable decline amongst the public in trust in institutions of most kinds: however there has been a marked decline in the trust in NGOs and the social/charitable sector. Trust in our organization influences everything from donations to partnerships, access and volunteering. Greater demands for transparency in accountability, efficiency and impact has put a strong spotlight on the work of the humanitarian/development sectors. Any transgressions by one of our organizations can rapidly –and negatively – affect the whole network. Some Issues identified in the S2030 consultations

• Greater demands for transparency will involve opening up our financial information, details about our programs and their real impact, and our decision making. What mechanisms and processes will help us do this? What kind of organisational cultures will we need to enable this?
• Our capacity to engage in direct, open and honest communication with a wide audience will be more important, including more effective social media management. Do we have the commitment, skills and capacity to do this?
• The effectiveness and decisiveness with which we address transgressions will be under increasing scrutiny, are we committed enough to this and do we have the right governance and policy approaches to effectively deal with these issues.
• Issue of trust and integrity are also related to where and how we receive funding and who we partner with, and whether the wider practices and policies of these donors/partners are consistent with our principles and values.
• Our accountability to the communities we work with is increasingly important, how do we ensure that power, decision making and control is in the hands of communities and that we are answerable to them?
• The behaviours and actions of our leaders need to espouse the values and principles we aspire to.

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What actions can we begin immediately to address the challenges we are currently facing? What future focused actions can we start to experiment with to address emerging trends that are likely to impact on us in the next 10 years? What is the value of us taking this action? What are the barriers that exist for us to tackle this issue?