So we have now gone through all the steps and agreed to become formal partners… exciting! Now what?
Some organizations sometimes ask us to sign a pre-teaming agreement and we are happy to do that. The last thing we want to do is to steal the ideas of people we want to work with! But we don’t expect our partners to routinely sign such agreements and we don’t have a template that we use. If this is important to you, you can tell us why and we can use a text you have used before or agree the text between us.
During the design process, you should discuss with your Minority Rights Group contact, how any management and administration percentage will be split between organizations, how your essential staffing, office and governance costs can be met and whether there might be any expectation for you to contribute towards any match funding that the funder we are applying to might require. Regarding covering your administrative costs, we have prepared some useful information here. If you want to learn more about our approach to match funding, you can find more information here. However, the rules vary according to the funder so these are general guidelines. If your contact at Minority Rights Group gives you different advice, you will need to follow that.
At some point in the early stages of working together (sometimes at the design stage, sometimes when funding is confirmed and for all but the smallest grants), we will ask you to complete a Partnership Agreement and Partner Assessment Template (PAT). The partnership agreement is a general document that describes how we will work together but it does not concern delivering any specific programme work or contractual obligations. It covers our mutual expectations of those we work with to treat every person equally and with respect, and to act both professionally and responsibly. If we receive a complaint from a member of your staff, from a trainee or from another partner organization, that you have acted in ways that don’t live up to human rights norms or to our standards, we will initiate a discussion with you. We will expect your organization to take appropriate and prompt action against any individual or individuals involved who are found to have behaved inappropriately.
You will also need to complete a PAT which we use to identify both the strong and less developed elements of your organizational set up. This allows us to ensure that we do not overwhelm you with demanding new programmes or give you too much extra responsibility too early on. It also allows us to see where there might be opportunities for us to learn from you or vice versa. There are several sheets within the PAT excel document and depending on the programme work you are co-designing with us, you will complete the grants < £5k sheet, or the grants >£5k sheet. You also need to complete the information sheet. In some cases, for larger grants we may visit you to understand your organization better and to conduct a capacity assessment. In this case, we may fill out the PAT together during this visit.
Once funding is confirmed, we will ask you to sign a contract. This will set out the activities you will complete, the activities or non-financial support that MRG will provide, the results we hope to achieve, any financial support we will provide and the budget for how it will be spent. We need to vary the exact terms of the contract depending on the size of the grant as well as the expectations or requirements of the funder. However, to get a general idea, you can see one sample contract for grants under £5k here, one sample contract for a larger grant to an organization with a turnover under £60k a year here, and one sample contract for a grant over £60k here.
The contract will explain when you need to report to us. You will need to submit both narrative and financial reports. There will normally be a kick-off meeting, especially for larger grants and for new partners, where we will talk through some ‘dos and don’ts’ and you will be able to ask questions and clarify anything that you don’t understand. If we don’t have that meeting, (or if we do but a query arises later and you are unsure about anything), please do reach out to your Minority Rights Group contact and ask. It is much better to clarify things at the beginning than to get to the end of your activities and to find that you have not recorded everything you need to report to us about. As with the contracts, our reporting formats do vary according to the size and type of programme and what funders need but a fairly standard example is here (financial) and here (narrative).
MRG will almost always want to review and approve both narrative and financial reports on one phase of work before we send the next tranche of funding. But, at the same time, we know some organizations won’t have cash in the bank to continue working (also bearing in mind that sometimes banks can take a while to move the money). If this is going to hold up the work or make things very difficult for you, let us know and we will see what we can do to find a solution that works best for both of us.
We love it when you send us photos of your work and sometimes we can use them in our media or social media work or on the website. However, to do this we need the people in the photo to give their signed permission. We won’t normally use photos of children so try not to take photos where individual children can be recognised.
You should not use Minority Rights Group’s logo on the front cover of a report, film, website or other output unless we have had an opportunity to check and approve the content. We are often happy to co-publish with partners and we know that our reputation for authoritative and quality-controlled content can help gain an audience, but we first need to be sure that we know what is being said. When our logo is used on a front cover, we would normally have been involved in the data collection and will need to be sure that we are comfortable with and confident about methods and contents. However, to ensure transparency, you may, if you wish, include our logo inside any report that we have financially supported with a disclaimer that we contributed funding for it but are not responsible for the contents. Please discuss this with your Minority Rights Group contact, giving reasonable notice before the publication deadline in order to agree the wording, placement etc.
MRG will ask you to subscribe to our newsletter. This is because opportunities for partners to carry out advocacy, submit evidence, attend training or apply for funding are regularly included, and it is an efficient way for us to contact you. The newsletter is currently only available in English, but we hope that you will be able to use online translators to access the contents regardless, and many of the links will take you to materials produced in other languages. It is also great – if it is safe for you to do so – if you can follow Minority Rights Group on Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube. Consider whether it is appropriate and useful to tag us when you are posting on your own social media channels and we will share your content with a wider audience, if we can.
MRG promises to do its utmost to keep your data confidential and safe and we will ask you to do likewise. For instance, if you attend a training event organized by us, we will ask you to understand that other participants may be facing a very severe security situation, similarly at times our staff may be at risk, and we ask that you do your utmost to keep data about their interactions with you password protected or on secure channels. There are many organizations who support NGOs who may come under threat, such as Frontline Defenders, Protect Defenders, or CSO Lifeline. You have the right to ask us to share with you the data that we hold about your organization, and we will always do so (after taking some time to collect and check it). If you want to do this, you can write to your Minority Rights Group contact, [email protected] or use the complaint button if you prefer.
We really hope that all your security precautions will be effective and that you will never face threats or reprisals as a result of your work with us. But if this does ever happen. If it is safe to do so, please reach out to us and we will see what we can do to help. We know that our partners take risks to try to advance the cause of equality and human rights and if you face difficulties as a result, we will do what is within our power to mitigate any negative effects.
If you ever have a concern or a complaint about the way anyone associated with MRG has treated you, please contact us. Any feedback will be independently and, as far as possible, confidentially investigated. We want to hear from you if you are unhappy about anything in our relationship. We can’t always solve every problem, but we will investigate and learn for the future and try to do better for both you and others.