Becoming a GRI Certified Training Partner

The following five steps have to be undertaken to become a fully certified GRI training partner.

STEP 1 - Respond to call for training partners

GRI makes a “call for training partners” from a selected country or region to apply to become a training partner. Organizations are asked to apply within a defined period. New calls for training partners are announced through the Certified Training Program website, GRI general news on the website and the GRI newsletter.

Training Organizations are invited to send an application which covers the following points:

1. Summary with background information about the history of the organization, its mission, its values and its main goals for the next period.
2. Description of its training and/or educational activities and indicators on quality of them. This should provide detailed information on what types of courses the organization has run in the last two years, including the target group and the length of such courses.
3. Description of audiences the organization would target and the reasons for this choice.
4. Projection on size of the market, (and clients to be subsidized, if it is the case).
5. Summary of its performance reporting practices and future plans for reporting.

STEP 2 - Pre-selection of training organizations

GRI pre-selects training organizations who meet the selection criteria, after whicha Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) is proposed and then discussed.

A training organization has maximum one year to come to an agreed MOU with GRI. If after one year a training organization has not yet signed an MOU with GRI they lose their pre-selected status.

STEP 3 - MoU signed

GRI and the training partner come to an agreement on an MOU. This MOU covers both parties for a period of two years and three months and addresses issues such as the following:

• Rights and responsibilities of both parties
• Fees involved in the certified training program
• Quality Control Activities
• GRI certified training material and support materials            

STEP 4 - Certification Process

GRI prepares 36 obligatory points of the content to be covered and the training partner has 14 others to prepare, covering local content. GRI Learning Services will give precise instructions for this process. Learning Services also couches the partners until the material is considered ready.

STEP 5 – Certification Complete

After the certification process is completed, partners are able to offer the GRI Certified Training Program in the country or region that is covered by the MOU. It is important to clarify some important issues at this point.

• The training partner is only able to offer the training program in the country or region mentioned in the MOU. If they would like to offer the certified training program in a different country or region, they must contact GRI to find out if this can be done.
• If the training partner would like to use extra material or cases that had not been certified in the training program, they need to contact GRI to find out how this can be done.

GRI has established a number of support and quality control activities to ensure that the training program is provided at an acceptable level of quality. The following are the major Support and QC Activities that are organized by GRI for certified training partners. To find out more details on each of these activities click on any of the activities below.

1. Post-Course participants’ questionnaire

2. Three monthly report

3. Train the Trainers courses & workshops

4. Formal Quality Control Activities

If you have any questions that are not addressed in the training pages, you can send an email to GRI Learning Services, learning@globalreporting.org.