Governance

WWF’s leadership team is made up of our Board of Directors, Governors, our Executive Team and four key committees. These leaders seek to honour our supporters by ensuring we deliver effective conservation programs in an ethical and transparent manner. The governance structures and policies we’ve adopted assists WWF-Australia to act as an open and accountable organisation.

The WWF-Australia Constitution is our overarching policy document. Our Code of Ethical Conduct and Committee Charters also outline many of our governance arrangements.

Accountability is of utmost importance to WWF-Australia and to this end we produce our Annual and Sustainability reports, which include full financial statements. These financial statements are independently audited by an external auditor (PricewaterhouseCoopers), whose appointment is reviewed annually by the Finance, Audit and Risk Management Committee.

The Board, through the Finance, Audit and Risk Management Committee, is responsible for ensuring there are adequate policies in relation to risk management, compliance and internal control systems. The company’s policies are designed to ensure that strategic, operational, legal, reputational and financial risks are identified, effectively assessed and efficiently managed and monitored to enable us to achieve our objectives.

WWF-Australia is accredited with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), under the Australian NGO Cooperation Program (ANCP).

Our organisation is also a signatory to the ACFID Code of Conduct, which means that we are bound to follow the code's high standards of corporate governance, public accountability and financial management for NGOs.

WWF-Australia is also a signatory to the Fundraising Institute of Australia (FIA) Code of Conduct.

We welcome feedback on any aspects of our operations and conduct. If you have any feedback or complaints please go to our contact us page.

If you would like to know more about how we handle complaints you can have a look at our Complaint Handling Policy.

More information about the ACFID Code of Conduct is available from www.acfid.asn.au/code-of-conduct or by contacting ACFID on main@acfid.asn.au or +61 2 6285 1816. Complaints relating to alleged breaches of the Code of Conduct by any signatory agency can be made by any member of the public to the ACFID Code of Conduct Committee. Complaints should be marked ‘confidential’ and emailed to: code@acfid.asn.au. Or posted to:

Chair, ACFID Code of Conduct Committee
Care Of ACFID
Private Bag 3
Deakin ACT 2600 Australia

WWF-Australia is committed to sharing timely, relevant, accurate and accessible information with our supporters, partners and other stakeholders. Information regarding our legal status, governance, and policies are all available on our website or by request. Information about our conservation activities and finances are published in the Annual Report, on our website and through social media.

Our Code of Ethical Conduct commits all WWF-Australia Board members, staff members, volunteers and interns to the highest standards of honesty and transparency and we extend this commitment to our Partner Organisations.

Our Complaint Handling, Speak Up, Conflict of Interest and Internal Investigation and Disciplinary Panel Procedures policies are freely available on WWF-Australia’s website and by request.

These policies provide detailed information about how complaints and any breaches of our Code of Ethical Conduct and other commitments are dealt with.

Our Privacy Policy details the types of information we collect about our supporters, how and why we collect that information and what it is used for. It also provides information about how people can access and correct the information we hold about them, how to raise concerns or make complaints about possible privacy breaches.

Our Policy on Sustainable Development and Inclusive Developmentoutlines our commitments to ethical data collection, sharing project lessons with relevant stakeholders, and fostering meaningful community participation. It also makes clear our commitment to obtaining the free, prior and informed consent of those involved in, or affected by, our work. Along with our Complaint Handling Policy, it also outlines our commitment, and the commitment we require of our Partner Organisations, to establishing and promoting accessible, safe, and discreet mechanisms for stakeholders to provide feedback and raise concerns or complaints.