Thank you for your interest in becoming a member of the Ethics and Compliance Officer Association (ECOA). Before submitting your membership applicaton, please take a moment to familiarize yourself with our membership guidelines. These guidelines reflect our long-held and esteemed values of integrity, confidentiality, collegiality, and cooperation. 

1. Membership in the ECOA is available only to persons recognized by their organization as having the assigned role and responsibility for designing, implementing, or administering its ethics, compliance, or business conduct program.   

2. Members are accountable for honoring the ECOA Standards of Conduct and Online Member Networking and Resource Center Guidelines. 

3. The ECOA prides itself on being a community in which every member enjoys the freedom to network and interact freely and respectfully. Individuals may not use information gained via their ECOA membership to solicit business with the intent to profit. In addition, members cannot provide any nonmember with member-contact or other information. 

4. To protect the confidentiality of all members, ECOA member lists or personal information may not be distributed to nonmembers at any time. 

5. Member benefits are individual and cannot be shared or transferred to other individuals, even within the same organization. 

6. In the event a member leaves her/his organization before the end of the membership term, the balance of the membership remains with the organization, not the individual. Membership dues are not refundable in whole or in part at any time. 

7. Members are expected to contribute samples of their organization’s code of conduct, surveys, charters, policies, training, and other materials to the ECOA Resource Library.  The ECOA will work to protect contributed information from dissemination outside the ECOA membership. 

8. Members are encouraged to share their knowledge, expertise, and experience with other members. We welcome speaker proposal submissions from members for many types of ECOA events, from conferences to webcasts to seminars.  

9. Sponsoring Partner (SP) members are encouraged to participate in the leadership and strategic planning of the association. To this end, we encourage both SP Representatives and SP Associates to nominate and self-nominate SP members for membership in the Board of Directors. Basic members are not eligible to vote for board members nor stand for election to the board.

10. Experience over 19 years has proven that, the greater the extent of members’ participation in ECOA activities, including industry/interest groups, working groups, resource-sharing, events, and online networking opportunities, the greater the member’s value from membership. 

Online Member Networking and Resource Center Guidelines

1. All participation in ECOA Connects, the ECOA’s Online Member Resource and Networking Center, must reflect the association’s values: community, integrity, trust, respect, mutual support, and professional excellence.

 

2. Members must not inappropriately disparage others within ECOA Connects or any ECOA-sponsored environment. Online discussions are intended to stimulate networking and learning, not to harm others.

3. Participants may not post commercial messages or any communication that gives the appearance of soliciting business. This includes promoting, marketing, or selling products, services, or the providers of either.

4. Members are accountable for reading, understanding, and honoring the ECOA’s Antitrust Guidelines. While access to ECOA Connects is restricted to members, and all communications are protected by the ECOA’s standards of confidentiality, the ECOA cannot promise that content will never be requested by enforcement authorities.

5. All materials added to ECOA Connects are subject to copyright protection laws. On submitting content to the Resource Library, members will be asked to confirm their knowledge of their right to contribute the content to the library.

6. All defamatory, abusive, profane, threatening, offensive, or illegal materials are strictly prohibited.

7. To promote a trusting, collegial environment, most features of ECOA Connects (including the Resource Library) are provided for the sole use of the ECOA member community.  Sharing of materials with non-members without the prior authorization of the ECOA is not allowed.  

 

Our Promise to You:

We are dedicated to you, our members, and to the highest standards of quality and excellence in the field of ethics and compliance. We are always available to respond to requests and questions, and are committed to ensuring that your experience with the ECOA community exceeds your expectations. If it does, please tell a colleague or a peer. If it does not, please tell us.   We take the privacy of our members very seriously and will make every effort to protect members’ personal information, including e-mail addresses, and will use member information only in the context of delivering services to members. We do not share confidential member information with outside parties at any time, and we maintain the integrity of our database at all times. We may use your personal information to make you aware of ECOA events and services that may interest you. You may opt-out of any type of ECOA communication at any time by writing to support@theecoa.org.