Care & accountability
Protection of Vulnerable Beneficiaries
This policy describes principles for dignity, safety, agency, and responsible stewardship when the foundation works with people who may face heightened vulnerability.
Dignity, inclusion, and do-no-harm
The foundation should treat every person as an individual with rights, strengths, and a voice in decisions affecting them. Support should be non-discriminatory, culturally respectful, accessible, and designed to avoid stigma, dependency, coercion, retaliation, or unintended exposure. A person's vulnerability should never be used to justify unnecessary data collection, publicity, or unequal treatment.
Participation and informed consent
People should receive information in a form they can understand, have a genuine opportunity to ask questions or decline, and be able to withdraw from optional participation without losing essential support. Staff should consider age, capacity, language, disability, power imbalance, and safe involvement of a trusted representative. Consent for services, research, stories, photographs, and data sharing should be separate and specific rather than bundled.
Safe and equitable assistance
Before a programme begins, its eligibility, selection, prioritisation, referral, distribution, complaints, and exit processes should be defined in a transparent and reviewable way. Staff should assess protection risks, avoid conflicts of interest, separate approval from distribution where feasible, and provide reasonable accommodations. Assistance should not be conditional on publicity, political support, religious participation, personal data beyond need, or payment of a fee unless an approved and explained arrangement exists.
Information and confidentiality
Beneficiary information should be collected only when necessary, kept accurate, accessed by authorised people, and shared only for a defined purpose with appropriate safeguards. Case details must not be submitted through generic public website forms or exposed in stories, spreadsheets, logs, photographs, or public reports. De-identification should be used where possible, but it must not be treated as sufficient if a person could still reasonably be recognised.
Safeguarding and complaints
Concerns about abuse, exploitation, neglect, fraud, discrimination, or retaliation should be handled through a trained safeguarding and complaints process, not by asking vulnerable people to resolve them directly with the person involved. Immediate risks should be directed to appropriate local emergency or protection services. Safe, accessible reporting options should be offered, people should be protected from retaliation, concerns should be acknowledged, and outcomes should be communicated to the extent safely possible.
Partners, monitoring, and learning
Partners and contractors working with beneficiaries should meet written protection, conduct, privacy, accessibility, and complaints expectations before engagement. Monitoring should measure whether support is safe, relevant, equitable, and accountable, using the least information needed. Learning should improve practice without exposing individuals or turning participation into a condition of assistance.