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Our Governance

GOAL is committed to maintaining the highest levels of good governance across our organisation and in our humanitarian programmes. We prioritise accountability with all our stakeholders, particularly the communities, donors and partners that we work with.

Workplace integrity

Authentic workplace integrity - where a strong moral character lies at the core is by definition a whole and ongoing organisational effort. It goes beyond transparency and accountability and includes compliance with the law and organisational standards, as well as with universal ethical principles, i.e. respect, fairness and honesty and applying these ethical norms in our professional context.

GOAL has a range of policies, procedures and systems that comprise our Workplace Integrity Framework and compliment and support our cultural commitment to accountability and integrity. The framework incorporates core policies including the Code of Conduct, Child Protection Policy, Protection from Sexual Exploitation and Abuse Policy, Whistleblowing Policy, Anti-Fraud Policy, Conflict of Interest Policy and internal controls and management systems that which empower and guide all internal stakeholders.

For more information on this area, please contact info@goal.ie

Key GOAL Organisational Policies

GOAL has in place a wide range of policies that set out our approach, expectations and ways for working across key areas of of our organisation and work.

For more information on our policies or to access them in different languages, please contact info@goal.ie

Legal, regulatory and statutory commitments

GOAL is registered with the Charities Regulatory Authority in Ireland, the Fundraising Regulator in the UK and is a registered 501(c)(3) organisation in the USA. In addition to this, GOAL has achieved ‘Triple Lock’ standard, as confirmed by Charities Institute Ireland. This confirms GOAL’s governance across three key areas:

Ethical fundraising
Annual and financial reporting
Governance
Other commitments

Fundraising from the public

GOAL’s board has formally adopted the 'Guidelines for Charitable Organisations on Fundraising from the Public'. Staff and volunteers are fully trained on these requirements. We have implemented controls to ensure that all  fundraising practices are in line with the 'Guidelines' and related Codes of Practice.

In addition, GOAL is a member of the Charities Institute of Ireland and registered with the Irish Charity Regulator and UK Fundraising Regulator.

GOAL reviews and reports annually on all compliance procedures. 

Read our Donor Charter.

Reporting with Charity SORP FRS102

GOAL prepares an annual report and financial statements in full compliance with Charity SORP FRS102 and makes them available to the public on our website. 

Charities SORP is a Statement of Recommended Practice which sets out how charities should prepare their annual accounts and report on their finances. SORP is an interpretation of the underlying financial reporting standards and generally accepted accounting practice. It is overseen by a committee of 17 expert members drawn from the four charity law jurisdictions covered by UK-Irish GAAP. 

Read GOAL's latest Annual Report & Accounts.

Working with the 'Charities Governance Code'

GOAL’s board has formally adopted the 'Charities Governance Code' as devised by the Charities Regulatory Authority. GOAL complies with the six principles of governance, reaching - and in many cases surpassing - the expectations of core standards related to our organisational structure.  

Find out more about the Charities Governance Code.

Beyond 'Triple Lock' standards

GOAL also complies with the following charters, guidelines and codes: 

- Charities Act 2009
- Core Humanitarian Standards
- Dóchas Code of Conduct on Images and Messaging
- Data Protection Act 2019 (including GDPR).

For any additional information or queries on GOAL’s approach to governance and accountability, please email info@goal.ie. 

Where donations and funding go

Last year, GOAL invested €163 million in our work supporting communities across 14 countries in Africa, the Middle East and Latin America.

We reached more than six million people through our emergency response, nutrition, health, and livelihood focus areas. We remain committed to delivering community-focused, sustainable and transformative change where it is needed most.

Our commitment to you

To demonstrate our commitment to openness, transparency and integrity to donors and beneficiaries, GOAL adheres to the 'Triple Lock' standards (transparent reporting, good fundraising and governance), as published by the Charities Institute Ireland.

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GOAL 2021 Annual Report

2021 was a year of progress and impact for GOAL

2021 was the final year of GOAL's three year organisational strategy - Alliance, Ambition, Action. It was a year of significant progress organisationally and programmatically. It was also another year disrupted by Covid-19 globally. GOAL teams continued to adapt their way of working to respond to the pandemic while continuing to support beneficiaries with life saving support and long-term development programmes.

Our humanitarian and development programmes reached 18.5 million people worldwide, across Africa, the Middle East and Latin America. The range of interventions is myriad and the challenges faced complex, but the common threads across all of our work is a deep rooted dedication to supporting vulnerable communities by GOAL teams who are courageous, compassionate and committed.

This impact is only possible through the ongoing relationships with our supporters, donors and partners around the world who are similarly dedicated to a vision of a world free of poverty, crisis and inequality.