Working with partners

This guide is all about starting and checking due diligence of partners.

• If you are seeking to work with partners by giving them a grant or funding, see our guide to a safeguarding approach to grant making.
• If you are seeking to report a concern about a partner organisation including when you may need to report a concern to a regulator, see our guide to responding to safeguarding concerns.

When you are working in partnership with another person or organisation, or receiving funding from an organisation, you must make sure you have considered all the additional risks of working together as well as the benefits. Safeguarding makes that even more important.

You must check that your partners or funders:

• are reputable and that their values are in line with your organisation
• have effective, recently revised policies and procedures in place, including safeguarding
• meet other requirements such as demonstrating relevant qualifications and training for staff, having the right insurance and registrations with the right professional bodies.

You must put in place a written agreement, formal or informal, whenever you work with other organisations. In it you will want to be answering the following questions:

• What will each organisation provide or deliver? Who delivers what activities, on whose premises with what managers?
• How the costs will be met and by whom?
• Who will lead on responsibilities? For example, risk assessments, safeguarding concerns, and which policies you will follow.
• Whose safeguarding policies and procedures will be used when managing any concerns?
• What are the information sharing procedures, particularly in the event of a safeguarding incident?
• What will each partner do in the event of a complaint or incident? For example, if you feel the lead partner has not properly dealt with a safeguarding incident.
• Which lead manager is accountable in each organisation?

It should be signed by someone who is senior enough to represent each organisation. All staff and volunteers must have briefing sessions to make sure they are familiar with the shared code of conduct, what to do in the event of an incident and who to report to.

If you work in partnership regularly, or are a large organisation with multiple teams organising partnerships, it will be much smoother if you have a policy in place on how you do so. This will make clear in advance:

• how you will work with other organisations
• what checks you will do
• how you will decide whether to work together or not.

If you frequently accept funding, donations or sponsorships, consider having a policy that sets out how you make decisions about who you will accept these from. You will also want to make it clear in what circumstances you may decide to say no.

• To learn about the Charity Commission expectation on due diligence on partners, see their guidance on due diligence, monitoring and verifying the end use of charitable funds.