The code of conduct

The Luxembourg Red Cross, alongside four other Luxembourgish non-profit organisations, regularly calls on the generosity of Luxembourg’s residents in order to support its social, sanitary and humanitarian missions.

Conscious of their duty to inform, and striving for a process where people can make donations with confidence, the Luxembourg Red Cross, the Alzheimer foundation, the Luxembourg Caritas Foundation, the Kräizbierg Foundation, and the Luxembourg Cancer Foundation, five Luxembourgish non-profit organisations active in the humanitarian and social domains, hereinafter referred to as “member organisations,” have written and agreed on this code of conduct for organisations which call on the public’s generosity (hereafter referred to as “Code”) on February 13, 2007.

The six commitments

In order to enable “donating with confidence”, the member organisations need to meet the following six commitments:

• Donor rights

  The donors have the right to:

  • receive complete information concerning the requested donation;
  • an official certificate of their donation within a reasonable period of time;
  • compliance with allocation of funds;
  • a swift and honest reply to the information they requested;
  • a swift and appropriate reply in the case of a complaint.
• Selfless management

  The member organisations commit themselves to:

  • not remunerate the administrative functions ;
  • not directly or indirectly distribute profit ;
  • not attribute assets to the supporters of the member organisation or their entitled persons ;
  • not grant employees of the member organisations the right to vote nor the right to be elected to the qualified statutory body of the member organisation in question.
• Rigorous management

  The member organisations commit themselves to:

  • establish procedures and regulations allowing them to assure the relevance and the effectiveness of their management ;
  • select suppliers under unbiased and transparent conditions ;
  • establish a type of management for complaints and to inform the governing body at least once a year about the number, the type, and the handling of the donor complaints.
• Correct Communication actions

  The member organisations commit themselves to:

  • give the public and the donors reliable, loyal, precise and unbiased information ;
  • respect the dignity of their beneficiaries and not unfairly exploit the image of human distress, nor encourage any type of discrimination or incite with violence ;
  • provide the donors with an activity report of the past year, which contains in particular the sum of the collected funds donated by the public during the fundraising actions.
• Selfless fundraising actions

  The member organisations commit themselves to:

  • only implement methods of fundraising which are respectful to the donors ;
  • determine by written convention each collection organised by a third party and to inform the public of it ;
  • not grant the collectors any direct or indirect advantage proportional to the funds raised ;
  • only obtain the required financial means uprightly and with reasonable expenses ;
  • not sell, hire, share, exchange the donor list.
• Financial transparency towards the donors

  The member organisations commit themselves to:

  • maintain accurate accounts, establish annual accounts statements which should include a balance sheet, the details of any profit and loss made, including the annex; as well as establish a provisional budget for the subsequent accounting year at the end of an accounting period ;
  • have their accounts controlled by a company auditor designated by the statuary body in question ;
  • keep annual accounts, administrative reporting, and auditor’s report available to donors at their headquarters.