Charities and Conflict of Interest
by Megan Stewart
The term can strike fear into the hearts of organizations, as it conjures up visions of costly lawsuits and scathing headlines. Charities involved in raising money to fund research causes are especially vulnerable to the fallout from conflicts. Those involved in the governance of these organizations are often also beneficiaries of the money that the charity raises. In fact, they are typically involved in the charity because they are leaders in their fields. This can create difficulty when it comes to dealing with conflicts of interest.
And this is not only where conflicts actually exist - the perception of a conflict can be just as detrimental to a charity. Rumbling amongst donors who suspect that their money is being channeled by an interested director, or disgruntled researchers whose projects have been passed over for funding provides ample grist for the rumour mill.
So what can charities involved in funding research do to ensure that conflicts of interest are not their undoing? First, they need to think about avoiding conflict. Depending on how risk averse they are and how large the research pool is, they might choose not to allow funded researchers to sit on their board of directors at all. But if this is too drastic a measure, there are alternatives. Charities should think about adding outside experts to their funding panels. These people might be retired researchers or experts from different jurisdictions or related fields. This can go a long way to countering the appearance of bias in decision-making.
Second, they must implement watertight conflict of interest policies to deal with conflicts when they come up. A good policy should include:
• a definition of conflicts;
• a duty to disclose any conflicts;
• a procedure to bottom out whether a conflict actually exists;
• a process for recording conflicts and how they're handled; and
• a way to communicate the policy to people involved in the organization that drives home the importance of adhering to it.
In the end, the goal is to ensure that charities' stakeholders and the general public continue to have trust and confidence in their granting processes, so that they can continue to do great work. Having a robust conflicts of interest framework in place is key to making this happen.