November 14, 1995 DO-95-038 MEMORANDUM TO: Designated Agency Ethics Officials and Ethics Trainers FROM: Stephen D. Potts Director SUBJECT: Ethics Trainers' Partnership As many of you are aware, in August 1994, an interagency group of ethics officials/trainers joined forces and established the Ethics Trainers' Partnership (Partnership). The Partnership has proven that a cooperative ethics training effort enables agencies to ease the burden and expense of the ethics training requirements by pooling their resources and materials. Over the last 14 months the Partnership has made significant progress in achieving its goals. Through quarterly programs, ethics trainers have benefitted from the experiences of colleagues in other agencies as they discussed many important aspects of training and the most successful approaches to conducting annual ethics training. The Partnership also conducted an executive branchwide survey which provided valuable information on what the ethics community needs in the area of training methods and materials as well as interagency assistance in meeting the annual training requirement. Most recently, 15 member agencies conducted their annual ethics training via a satellite broadcast that reached an estimated 30,000 employees. In light of the current budget cutbacks in all agency programs, including the ethics program, the Partnership is looking forward to continuing to assist agencies in fulfilling their annual ethics training requirement. The Partnership will be holding an organizational meeting on December 7, 1995 at 10:00 a.m. at the Resolution Trust Corporation Amphitheater, 801 17th Street, NW. to discuss its future structure and to encourage additional agency participation. If you aren't already a participating agency, I encourage you to send a representative to this meeting to see first hand how valuable this type of cooperative effort can be. I believe the Partnership is setting a valuable example of how agencies can work together to conserve resources and serve the ethics community. I invite you to join me in pledging continued support to this Partnership.