31 March 2004
New 'best practice' benchmark for charities - Yellow Ribbon
Yellow Ribbon (The Youth Suicide Awareness Trust) announced today a new initiative for 2004, the Yellow Ribbon Quality
Procedure and Training Manual. The Manual creates a new best practice benchmark for charities, A sector that will soon
need to meet stricter regulatory standards.
"The Government has recently set up the Charities Commission EstablishmentGroup to develop procedures to register and
monitor the operations of charities. Our manual will greatly help this process" said Mr Keith Pittman, the Chief
Executive of Yellow Ribbon who has already had discussions with the Establishment Group.
Yellow Ribbon has worked with industry specialists over the past 9 months to have each section of the manual reviewed
and accredited. The result is a manual which covers best practice procedures for human resources, financial reporting as
well as its Peer Support training programmes in New Zealand secondary schools.
"We believe that this manual will help foster public trust in the charitable sector by increasing its accountability,
transparency and degree of public disclosure. We are looking forward to sharing it with the Commission and other
charities.
"There have been some high profile failures in the sector which have undermined the public's confidence in the good work
of charities. Clearly the Government have taken that concern on board with the proposed establishment of the
Commission."
ENDS