Things to think about in National Charity Fraud Awareness Week
October 24, 2017
Fraud awareness and management is a continuous cycle. The challenge for charities is to keep up to date with evolving and new fraud threats and new ways to prevent, detect and respond effectively to those threats.
In National Charity Fraud Awareness Week, take the opportunity to ask yourself a few simple questions about your charity’s fraud risk management:
- Do you have a clear strategy, including a fraud policy, that coordinates ongoing activities for preventing and detecting fraud? Are you confident it covers all types of fraud risk your charity may face including bribery risks?
- Do you regularly undertake fraud risk assessments to capture and consider current fraud trends, for example the continuing growth of ‘cyber-enabled’ fraud such as ‘bank mandate’ fraud and ‘spear phishing’ attacks?
- Do you have appropriate fraud risk management processes in place? For example, do you conduct background checks on significant new donors, new employees, Trustees, delivery partners and others holding key positions of trust? Do you have a whistleblowing hotline and an effective promotion of that hotline? And do you provide appropriate training on fraud awareness and what to do?
- Are you confident that you are prepared to react to a fraud? For example, do you have a documented plan for recording, tracking and responding to allegations or suspicions of fraud?
- When did you last review your fraud policy and assess whether identified fraud risks are being effectively mitigated by existing controls?
Participating organisations will be tweeting about Charity Fraud Awareness all this week, so do join the conversation. #CharityFraudOut.
National Charity Fraud Awareness Week, 23-27 October, encourages those working within or supporting the charity and voluntary sectors to become more fraud aware and resilient. The week is led by the Charities Against Fraud partnership.
