Who they are

Moonshot is a growing organisation countering violent extremism online as well as a range of other social harms, such as gender-based violence, ethno-nationalist conflict and incel culture.

The challenge

Moonshot was undergoing a period of rapid growth. Both founders had a strong commitment to behaving ethically – that was part of their motivation for setting up Moonshot – but much of the organisation’s approach was yet to be formalised. As the organisation grew, the founders knew that this approach would not be sustainable and needed to be embedded within the company.

What we did

Adapt conducted a review of the company’s approach to ethics, through evaluating documentation, meeting with key groups of staff and interviewing individual staff members. Adapt developed a report of findings and recommendations, that included formalising the approach by developing a clear ethics policy statement, building it into their business development approach and establishing an ethics committee as a source of support for staff.

The impact

Eighteen months later, Adapt conducted an external audit of Moonshot’s ethical systems and found that all the recommendations had been implemented. There was a clear management responsibility for ensuring ethical behaviour and robust systems for identifying and dealing with ethical challenges.  As Moonshot had doubled in size since the first review, their approach had helped with onboarding new staff and helping position the organisation to attract clients and external investment.