Fraud, Internal Audit, and Organizational Assessment

Our clients have trusted us with some of their most sensitive internal operational issues. When an alleged fraud is suspected within an organization, it is sometimes difficult to manage internally and know how to best address it, particularly if donor funds are involved.

We have expertise in undertaking both organizational assessments and fraud/misconduct investigations of nonprofit organizations. We can provide these services both remotely and locally across the world through our network of 120 expert consultants.

Internal Audits and Organizational Assessments

Over the last 20 years, we have carried out many internal audits and organizational assessments on behalf of nonprofit clients of various sizes and types. As a result, we have established our own nonprofit financial management capacity assessment framework. Humentum offers a variety of organizational assessments, due diligence processes, and audits to best suit organizational needs. These include internal control reviews, partner due diligence, internal audits, and HR audits.

Fraud Investigations

Our experience includes conducting global investigations focused on alleged financial fraud, bribery and corruption, unethical conduct, and violations of applicable laws and donor regulations.

All our investigators have a strong background in internal audit with our lead investigators being Certified Fraud Examiners and experienced at managing investigations into programs funded by major donor funders such as USAID, FCDO, SIDA, and others. We can deploy investigators fluent in English and several other languages depending on our clients’ needs, including Arabic, French, Spanish and Portuguese.

Humentum employs a standardized investigative approach to our work with clients. The aim of our investigations is to gather the information and evidence that will enable our clients to:

Put the needs of survivors of abuse at the core of the investigation and response

Protect and support any whistleblower and/or staff affected by the allegations

  Be accountable to the donor if donor funds are involved

  Be accountable internally to the organization’s board of directors and externally to the stakeholders, including beneficiaries, and the public at-large

 Take appropriate disciplinary measures against the staff members or partners involved as applicable

Manage and help rebuild trust with the relevant stakeholders affected

Learn from the incident investigated and identify improvements to internal controls or other prevention mechanisms to reduce the risk of reoccurrence

While this work is always done confidentially, some anonymous examples of recent assignments include:

An independent investigation into a partner organization in South Africa. In addition to an overall poor relationship with them during the funding period, the partner organization was not using project funds appropriately. The poor relationship had a tangible impact on the delivery of the project: some of the planned project deliverables were not achieved. The investigation assessed the Foundation’s governance, partnership relations, and financial arrangements and provided assurance that the funds provided had been used appropriately and in accordance with the original grant offer and budget.

A full investigation into a large international organization’s staff code and conduct violations as well as potential links between the staff on the ground to a sanctioned group. The investigation was specific to the organization’s Philippines program, in a region which had been scaled up to establish an emergency response to several typhoons in 2014 and 2015 focused on providing access to safe water and sanitation facilities.