LESSON 1: Both financial support and volunteer support for nonprofits depend on trustLESSON 2: Board members, staff, and volunteers need clear ethical standards to assure they are doing things in a proper way and to be held accountableLESSON 3: Board members, staff, and volunteers should be involved in a participatory process to develop, apply, and assess the code to assure ethical behaviorLESSON 4: The board of directors should draft and affirm its own written code of ethicsLESSON 5: Every organization should have a system to encourage and act on complaints, concerns, and whistleblowing about possible infractionsLESSON 6: Individual NGOs and NGO associations must be serious about their codes of ethicsLESSON 7: An organization should be prepared to deal with a scandalLESSON 8: Nonprofits and their NGO associations benefit by developing a culture of sharing about ethicsLESSON 9: It has often been the initiative of one person to introduce and generate support for a code of ethics for an NGO or associationLESSON 10: The fundraising director can take the lead in all these activities when there is need to do soLESSON 11: You can play a role at the national level and become known as an advocate for strong codes of ethics for all nonprofitsLESSON 12: To gain a full measure of trust, an organization needs self-assessments, external verification, enforcement, sanctions, and reporting to support a code of ethicsTwelve realities to considerNotesBibliography