Managing Private Sponsorship Risks - A guide for Civil Society Organisations working in health

This Guide was developed by the Global Mental Health Action Network in 2025, in close collaboration with technical legal experts, other global health experts, and not-for-profit organisations working in national and local contexts. Our thank you to Michael Fine, Principal, NXG Global Law and Compliance PLLC, who led the research and authoring.

What You Need to Know:

Several Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) may wish to attract funding or sponsorship from private companies. This Guide sets out the recommended principles that should underpin this. The focus is, in particular, on pharmaceutical company funding, though it can apply to any commercial company funding (whilst recognising that certain harmful industries are entirely incompatible with public health and, ideally, sponsorship from them should be avoided). To accompany this guide, we have provided a template Ethical Private Sponsorship Policy.

If, as a CSO, you do not have access to operational or other technical legal support, you can go straight to directly downloading the template, add your organisation’s details, and use it as your CSO’s policy.