Governance and Transparency

Our accountability

Brighter Communities Worldwide is committed to our responsibility as a charity to be accountable and transparent in the management and administration of this organisation. We are accountable to our donors, funders, supporters and the communities that we work with to operate to the highest standards.

More detailed information on our reporting and policies:

Our governance

In Ireland, Brighter Communities Worldwide is a registered company limited by guarantee (registration number 398094) and a charity registered with the Charities Regulatory Authority (RCN 20059583). The organisation has been granted tax exemption by the Revenue Commissioners in Ireland with registered charitable taxation number CHY16505.

In Kenya, Brighter Communities Worldwide is a registered Non-Governmental Organisation and is compliant with the terms of the NGO Coordination Act of 1990 and the attendant regulations of 1992.

Both organisations are governed by a Board of Directors which is responsible for making sure the organisation is governed in accordance with its mission, vision and legal obligations. All our board members (trustees) are voluntary.

Day-to-day management is undertaken by the Chief Executive Officer and the staff teams. Staff teams are supported by volunteers in both Ireland and Kenya. The organisations could not carry out their work without this vital voluntary service across the globe, and are very grateful for the support.

Our finances and annual reports

We have been awarded the Triple Lock Standard by the Charities Institute Ireland because we operate with best practice in reporting, fundraising and governance demonstrating openness, transparency and integrity to our beneficiaries and donors. We submit an annual self-certification to Charities Institute Ireland to make sure we maintain our standards.

This means that:

• We fundraise according to the Guidelines for Charitable Organisations on Fundraising from the Public, as devised by the Charities Regulator.
• We prepare our Annual Report and Financial Statements in full compliance with the Statement of Recommended Practice for Financial Reporting by Charities (SORP). We publish our reports online with the Charity Regulator Authority and the Companies Office and make them available on our website. We have been shortlisted by the Carmichael Good Governance Awards for the quality of our reports.
• We have adopted the Charities Governance Code as devised by the Charities Regulator. We undertake an annual audit to maintain full compliance which means recording the actions we take to meet each of the six principles of the Code and recording evidence to back this up. We submit our annual compliance record to the Charity Regulator.

Our standards of good practice

We are signatories to the following codes and standards that promote good practice in governance, fundraising, volunteer sending, safeguarding, images and messaging and accountability to the communities we support. We review these codes each year to check our compliance and make sure we are living up to the standards we seek to achieve.

• Charities Governance Code
• Guidelines for Charitable Organisations in Fundraising from the Public
• Comhlamh Code of Good Practice for Volunteer Sending Agencies – to ensure we deliver a volunteer programme promoting responsible international volunteering.
• Core Humanitarian Standard on Quality and Accountability – a voluntary standard that organisations involved in humanitarian response can use to improve the quality and effectiveness of the assistance they provide.
• Dóchas Guide to Ethical Communications ensuring we are accurately and fairly representing the communities we work with in our images and messaging.
• Dóchas Charter outlining what it means to be a member of Dóchas– a network of international development and humanitarian organisations who have a shared vision of a just, sustainable and equal world.
• We endorse the Comhlamh  Put Children First: End Orphanage Care Campaign

Our safeguarding

We are committed to creating brighter futures and we believe for that to happen we have to promote justice, equality, solidarity and respect for human rights as being the norm across all that we do. We are signatories to the Dóchas Safeguarding Code because we want to ensure that everyone working in and with our organisation is aware of the importance of safeguarding and understand their role in keeping everyone safe. We have put in place approaches to safeguarding to protect the communities and children we work with and keep them safe from all forms of violence, abuse and exploitation.

We have policies on Child Safeguarding and Protecting vulnerable adults.

We have a Beneficiary Feedback Mechanism to encourage everyone involved in the programmes we deliver to speak up and know that their voice will be heard and their opinions valued.

Our policies

We have devised policies, terms of reference and charters to guide us in how we carry out our work and ensure that we maintain the standards we are committed to achieving.

• Our child safeguarding policy
• Our policy on protecting vulnerable adults
• Our Feedback and Complaints Procedure
• Our Feedback and Complaints policy
• Our statement on guidelines for fundraising from the public
• Our donor charter
• Terms of reference for the finance, audit and risk committee
• Our privacy statement
• Our Partnership Policy
• Our Equality and Diversity Policy

Our memberships

Help us become a stronger organisation

We would love to hear your feedback on how we can improve on what we do to become an even stronger organisation. We are committed to ensuring that all our communications and dealings with you are of the highest possible standard.

If you have some feedback for us or if you would like to make a complaint to us then please click here for details.