Beatbullying chief executive Emma-Jane Cross is setting up a cross-sector working party to devise a code of conduct that will govern how charities should treat each other when embarking on formal or informal collaborations.

Cross (pictured) told Civil Society that the venture has support from the Charity Commission, NCVO, Acevo, Navca, the Directory of Social Change, Small Charities Coalition, Compact Voice, New Philanthropy Capital and the Clore Social Leadership Programme.

She said the code would be a light-touch and voluntary framework for doing business in a responsible and ethical manner, underpinned by various core principles such as equity and fairness, mission consistency, shared values, mutual respect, right to compete, value for money, transparency, accountability and financial probity.

The project has the working title ‘a compact for civil society’ but Cross admits this is not popular amongst those in the working group. The email address she has used to invite contact from people wishing to be involved is [email protected].

Development is still in the embryonic stages and Cross hopes to have a final document ready by the autumn.  She said it would be “short, swift, brief and sign-uppable-to” but will be supported by a proper brand and a website, as well as a “sense that the sector owns it”.

The working party intends to consult the sector on what should be in the new compact and the working party representatives will be sending out a questionnaire to their member groups within a few weeks. However, Cross expected it would cover subjects such as risk, payment, and reporting, among others.

Cross had the idea for the compact last summer after a new collaboration between Beatbullying and a large heritage charity disintegrated in the early stages.  The debacle left Beatbullying feeling it had been badly treated but also ruing its own failure to insist upon some kind of memorandum of understanding which might have given the project a better chance of success or helped to minimise the fallout when it did collapse. Cross admitted that one of the primary aims of the compact is to set out some ground rules for partnerships between large and small organisations.