When one fraud fighter learns, everyone benefits. Discover why employee education, professional networking and industry-wide collaboration are becoming some of the most powerful tools in preventing fraud.
As the fraud landscape continues to evolve at a rapid pace, learning and working together will be crucial as anti-fraud professionals and organizations move toward the future. It will take working both within the walls of your organization and beyond. In this article, we look at how to create a foundation of anti-fraud education within your business and examine how you can work with other organizations and data to expand your knowledge and better protect your bottom line from future threats.
Building an anti-fraud culture first starts within organizations. It takes the whole team, not just the anti-fraud professionals on staff if you have them, because when employees at all levels of an organization know how to spot fraud, they act as the first line of defense.
According to the ACFE’s Occupational Fraud 2026: A Report to the Nations, organizations that provide employees with fraud awareness training uncover fraud faster and have lower median losses when fraud occurs. Meanwhile, 71% of employees with fraud awareness training are more likely to report possible fraud.
Fraud awareness training can be conducted in several ways. The ACFE’s Fraud Awareness Training Benchmarking Report offers several suggestions, including:
Training also encourages conversations among colleagues, giving employees an opportunity to share questions, experiences and concerns about the fraud risks they encounter.
Anti-fraud training is just one part of the puzzle to keep your organization safe from emerging fraud threats. It also helps to be open to different perspectives, which includes seeking insights beyond your organization for idea sharing and discussions on fraud threats, impacts, red flags, fraud fighting tools and more.
Here are a few ways you can collaborate with anti-fraud professionals outside your organization:
Beyond the collaborative benefits, ACFE events and other anti-fraud trainings provide a platform for continued learning to stay informed of the evolving fraud landscape.
The ACFE publishes reports on occupational fraud trends, anti-fraud technology, guides on how to execute fraud risk management programs and more. Meanwhile, law enforcement agencies regularly share common frauds and scams impacting the general public. Non-profit organizations, like the AARP, keep senior citizens informed about the fraud schemes impacting this age group.
It is helpful to stay curious and open to learning more about different aspects of fraud so that you know what to look out for, even if fraud may not be impacting your organization now.
If you are ready to join a larger fraud fighting movement, we invite you and your organization to sign up as a Supporting Organization of the ACFE’s International Fraud Awareness Week, held every November.
You and your team can get creative and build your own educational materials to share, use free resources the ACFE provides or collaborate with other organizations in your community or industry to make an even larger impact. The more we share what we know and work together, the better equipped we all are to recognize and respond to fraud. Ultimately, the fight is strongest when what one person learns does not stop there.
