Creating a Code of Ethics for Your Organization

As community benefit organizations and as stewards of the public's trust, nonprofit organizations (via their Boards of Directors) bear the essential burden of operating ethically and transparently. Creating a "Code of Ethics" for your organization, can not only be a great exercise Board-level exercise, but can also help you articulate your organization's values. Once developed, it can be used in conjunction with vision, mission, and values statements to guide and inform policy discussions and strategic decision-making.

Some preliminary questions to consider when creating a "Code of Ethics":

• What are our shared values? More on values here.
• What are the essential roles of our Board? Our staff?
• What operational and financial information do we all need to know to be able to adequately exercise our duty of care? Who will share it? How will it be shared?
• How will we ensure full participation of Board members in essential Board decisions?
• How will we manage conflicts of interest if/when they occur?
• How will we ensure confidentiality of private information yet encourage transparency? More on transparency here.
• How will we monitor and ensure successful stewardship of funds, including endowment funds?
• How will we monitor and evaluate our programs to ensure that they are not only consistent with our mission, but are also producing planned outcomes? More on outcomes here.
• What will we do if we receive information that concerns us or if we are not receiving enough information?
• How will we share information with our donors, program participants, and the community at large?

Good codes answer the questions above, and:

• Are in writing and are simple to read.
• Are publicly available and shared openly, including directly with program participants. Consider referencing or linking to it alongside your mission in some or all of these places.
• Are signed by each and every Board member, Staff member, and organization volunteer.
• Provide guidance for what to do if code violations are suspected or have occurred.

 Additional Resources:

Code of Ethics for Directors of Nonprofit Corporations by Kirkpatrick & Lockhart Preston Gates Ellis LLP.

Article on "How Ethical is Your Nonprofit Organization"? from Guidestar.

A personal Code of Ethics for individual Board Members from Austin Community College (author unknown).

Get a sample "Statement of Values and Code of Ethics for Nonprofit and Philanthropic Organizations" and a sample checklist from Independent Sector here. (free but some form data required)

"What makes a good nonprofit code of ethics?" by Dawn-Marie Driscoll, Executive Fellow at the Center for Business Ethics at Bentley College and Trustee of the Southwest Florida Community Foundation

What other questions do you think are important to consider or what else would you include in a Code of Ethics? Do you have other samples to share? Just log in and comment to share your thoughts with our entire nonprofit and NGO community!