A Code of Conduct is an ethical framework that outlines how an organization is accountable, both internally (to employees, volunteers, members, etc.) and externally (to partners, suppliers, donors, etc.). It is the most common policy within an organization and presents its principles, standards, and the moral and ethical expectations that employees, volunteers, and third parties must uphold when interacting with or on behalf of the organization.
A Code of Conduct can serve as a compilation of the organization's various policies related to accountability, including anti-corruption, safeguarding, child protection, anti-terror, GDPR, complaints, security, and monitoring. It is up to the organization to decide whether to maintain separate documents for these policies or to consolidate them into a single Code of Conduct.
Code of Conduct: What should your organisation do?
You can have a Code of Conduct for your organization, partners, and target groups.
The Safeguarding Resource and Support Hub has developed a guide to creating a Code of Conduct, with a particular focus on smaller civil society organizations. In addition, they offer a wide range of tools and training in more than 10 different languages. The guide is freely available here:
