SAFEGUARDING & ACCOUNTABILITY

First Response Fund is committed to humanitarian principles and feminist values, including safeguarding, do no harm, and accountability. Learn more about First Response Fund’s application of humanitarian principles here. 

Our actions must align with our commitments. How we conduct ourselves as an organization is a critical part of how we live into these values and is fundamental to the quality, sincerity, and impact of our work. Our feminism is resolutely anti-racist, anti-oppressive, anti-colonial, human rights-based, and welcoming of all abilities, sexual identities, ages, and faiths. 

First Response Fund personnel commit to observing high standards of ethics in the conduct of their duties and responsibilities. Personnel must demonstrate honesty and integrity in fulfilling their responsibilities and comply with all applicable local and international laws as well as the Equality Fund Code of Conduct, policies and regulations. Complaints of misconduct are taken seriously and investigated thoroughly.

Reporting Misconduct

As a feminist organization, our work acknowledges and addresses abuses of power in all its forms. Unequal gender dynamics and power relationships provide the basis for sexual exploitation and abuse. Due to their unequal status, women and girls are particularly at risk of sexual exploitation and abuse. Gender inequalities intersect with other inequalities (such as age, disability, nation of origin, social-economic status, race, sexual orientation, or religious beliefs). As an organization based in Canada working internationally, we are particularly aware of our own place in these relationships, and the intersecting power dynamics and the harm that can arise from abuses of power.

The Equality Fund, on behalf of the First Response Fund, offers safe and confidential reporting mechanisms so that any person can report misconduct, exploitation or abuse by Equality Fund and First Response Fund personnel.

Violations or incidents can be submitted without fear of reprisal by using Equality Fund’s toll-free anonymous reporting hotline with options for English, French, and Spanish. The number for this hotline is 1 (877) 874-2531 and it is accessible 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.

Alternatively reports can be made via an anonymous online submission platform.

Disclosures are confidential and the Equality Fund and First Response Fund will do everything within its control to protect the identity of the person making the report.

To the best of our ability, the Equality Fund and First Response Fund will ensure that complaints made about personnel are adequately responded to, addressed and/or investigated as appropriate.