Nonprofit Resource Center (NRC) is proud to announce its first Ethics Survey. The purpose of this survey is to assess how employees of nonprofit organizations feel about ethics in their workplace, including the overall environment as well as the steps that have been taken by senior management to set the tone for ethical behavior. This survey is the first of its kind to assess employees' feelings about ethics on such a large scale in the nonprofit sector.

The survey is being conducted under the direction of Gerard M. Zack, MBA, CPA, CFE, Founder and President of NRC. Mr. Zack is a Certified Fraud Examiner and a Fellow in the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners and has done extensive research and work in the anti-fraud field and is the author of the book, Fraud and Abuse in Nonprofit Organizations: A Guide to Prevention and Detection (published in 2003 by John Wiley & Sons).

The survey is based, in part, on a survey on business ethics published in the December 2007 issue of Internal Auditor magazine in a story about an anonymous company that had used the survey to assess ethics. NRC has made certain modifications and additions to customize the survey for the nonprofit sector.

Once an organization registers with NRC, employees can begin completing the survey at their leisure - the survey is submitted online via NRC's website. The survey's 15 questions take less than 10 minutes to complete. Results of our research will be analyzed and a report will be published in late-2008. Results in the aggregate will be provided to each participating organization.

Participation in NRC's Ethics Survey is easy and is completely confidential.

For Employees of Participating Organizations

All survey submissions will be kept strictly confidential at NRC. Your employer will not see any individual survey responses and will only receive the results in aggregate—a summary of the results from all of your organization's employees. Your employer will in no way be able to link responses to any specific employee.

To complete the survey, click here

For Participating Organizations

To review the 15 questions on the survey prior to electing to participate, just click on the survey link above. An officer or member of the senior management team should review the questions and other information before authorizing an organization's participation.

The survey is designed to be completed by employees with significant exposure to the workplace and its policies. Therefore, we ask that you announce the survey to, and request the participation of, only full-time employees and part-time employees who work 25+ hours per week on a regular basis. The survey is not designed to be completed by volunteers or by part-time employees who work irregular hours or less than 25 hours per week on average.

In addition, the survey is designed to be completed by employees below the senior management level. Therefore, participating organizations should determine which employees are considered to be the senior management team and exclude them from the survey.

Nonprofit Organizations interested in participating should follow these simple instructions:

1. Download the Participating Organization Registration Form—click here
2. Complete the form and submit it to NRC either by mail or by fax:
   Nonprofit Resource Center
   P.O. Box 8585
   Gaithersburg, MD 20898-8585
   Fax: (301) 987-0988
3. Wait to hear from us that we have received and accepted your form. At that time you will also receive an Organization Identification Number - this number will be necessary for your employees to submit their surveys. Surveys submitted without this number will not be considered. You should hear back from us within 5 business days.
4. Determine which employees should participate in the survey (i.e. those below the senior management level who meet the full-time or 25+ hours part-time work criteria described above)
5. Announce the survey to, and request the participation of, the employees identified in step 4. You may provide a direct link to our website, www.nonprofitresource.com, on your organization's intranet if you wish, or simply provide employees with simple instructions for going to our site, clicking on the "Ethics Survey" button and completing the survey. At the time we provide you with confirmation of your organization's acceptance and its code number, NRC will also provide you with a sample announcement that you can use in requesting your employees' participation.
6. Provide to all employees the 5-digit Organization Code that we assigned and inform employees that they must enter that code in order for their survey responses to be counted.

NRC will continue accepting organization registrations through August 31, 2008 and individual responses through September 30, 2008.

When an organization registers, we suggest that the Participating Organization ask that all employees prepare the survey within 30 days. After that 30-day period has expired, NRC will prepare a summary of results in the aggregate (i.e. summaries of responses to the 15 questions, but not sorted by category of employee). This summary will be provided to your organization's contact person approximately 30 days after the expiration of the 30-day response period.

Just as the confidentiality of individual responses is guaranteed, the way in which the survey is designed as well as in how NRC gathers and reports results ensures that employee feelings about senior management cannot be linked to any specific member of the senior management team. Our report back to your organization will not identify individual employee responses nor will it identify members of senior management or employee supervisors that are referred to in some of the questions.

NRC plans to publish a comprehensive report on the results of this survey. This report will include the results obtained from all employees from all of the Participating Organizations. NRC's report will also include data sorted based on a variety of employee and organizational demographics (e.g. results will be sorted by age, length of employment with your organization, etc., as well as by type and size of organization). Nothing in this final report shall identify the names or identities of any of the Participating Organizations or of its employees. We anticipate publishing this report by the end of 2008.

Each Participating Organization shall receive a free copy of any report that NRC publishes in connection with this survey, to be used to benchmark your organization against the results obtained from other similar organizations.