Becoming a Client Focused Organization

Publication Date: 29 Oct 2004
Published by: Freedom from Hunger
Document Type: Presentation

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How important is the ethical treatment of clients?

This presentation discusses Freedom from Hunger’s initiative to develop a “statement on the ethical treatment of clients”. The presentation describes its:

• Motivation, which included:
  • The centrality of the client;
  • Provision of a marketing edge to the partners;
  • Demonstration to regulators that partners are serious about fair treatment.
• Process, which included:
  • Internal discussions to raise awareness and raise commitment;
  • Meetings to generate the components of the statement;
  • Review and endorsement by leadership team;
  • Approval by the board.

The statement issued focussed on providing clients with:

• Good quality, continuous and affordable services;
• Dignified treatment;
• Protection from unethical practices;
• Truthful information;
• Confidentiality and fair disclosure.

The presentation then lists:

• Reasons for the program’s success:
  • Awareness among staff and board;
  • Support from key partners;
  • Leadership in pro-client policies.
• The challenges that it encountered:
  • Translating statement into code at the level of partners;
  • Establishing monitoring and compliance approaches;
  • Communicating to clients.

The presentation concludes that:

• The statement should be shared with all partners;
• Technical staff need to be trained to work with partners and develop a code of practice;
• Mechanisms should be developed on monitoring and communicating the code.