The Communications Network site is hosting a guest blog from PPC-NYC member Elizabeth Miller of The Overbrook Foundation talking about what the concept of transparency means in her communications practice amidst the new social media tools currently being used by many foundations today. The jumping off point of her piece is The Foundation Center’s very important new initiative called Glasspockets.
Both Miller’s post and the Foundation Center Glasspockets site are important to check out and incorporate into our thinking about public policy communications. I have my own thoughts/critiques, which I share below. But first, a bit more on the Miller post and the Glasspockets site.
The Glasspockets site (in its own words) hopes to…
Inspire private foundations to greater openness in their communications. Increase understanding of best practices in foundation transparency and accountability in an online world. Illustrate how institutional philanthropy is relevant to the critical issues of our time. Highlight the many stories of philanthropy that show how private wealth is serving the public good. Illuminate successes, failures, and ongoing experimentation so foundations can build on each other’s ideas to increase impact.
It’s most important contribution to truly advancing those objectives is the development of a metric for actually gauging transparency. It includes 28 specific elements demonstrating foundation transparency. And, the site has begun to post examples of individual foundations and how they stack up on those 28 factors. They’ve started with some of the foundations with reputations for being very transparent. This is a GREAT start in fostering greater openness among foundations, even if the examples focus on foundations that are pretty far along in the transparency curve. I think that creating a real set of metrics, however debatable, is the key first step in moving the transparency movement forward.
Most of the 28 elements that are part of the Glasspockets metric are very basic things that you would think EVERY foundation would do, like making publicly available mission statements, lists of boards of directors, lists of key staff, basic financial information that is reported to the IRS anyway, and having a website. But some of the elements are efforts that most foundations still avoid, like assessing the foundation’s performance, making those performance evaluations available for review, gaining grantee feedback, and many aspects of modern 2-way communications through social media.
Elizabeth Miller’s Communications Network post takes up some the more “advanced” transparency issues, especially social networking and web 2.0 communications. There is much of value in her piece and I think that it is great that Overbrook Foundation aims to do more than just what is minimally required in the foundation community.
That said, I think both Miller’s post and the Glasspockets initiative sort of skirt around the crux of the transparency issue. That is, very few foundations are courageous enough to be openly introspective, to wonder aloud if their grants and programs are actually having the impact they intend. Almost every foundation puts forth a constant stream of “success stories” that mask the truth. It’s all happy news. Don’t get me wrong, stories of success are important — to say what is working is good. But very few foundations even take the time to evaluate how effective their programs really are, let alone reveal publicly the learning that comes from those evaluations. I think that the efforts outlined by Miller and the elements highlighted by Glasspockets are great. But until foundations are willing to simply open themselves up publicly to examination and critique, they will never truly be understood or accepted as leaders in social change.
Think about the politicians and social activists you trust. Are they the ones who always say everything is going great and that every idea they’ve ever put forth was the right one? No. Real leaders are those who can talk candidly and with honesty about what didn’t work and why. That is the heart of transparency. Putting a foundation’s Form 990 online so people can get at that information more easily is great. But until foundations go beyond constantly putting out the endless stream of “happy news” about themselves, they will never be trusted or understood by the public.
About Michael Hamill Remaley
Michael Hamill Remaley is Vice President, Communications & Public Policy at Philanthropy New York and President of HAMILL REMALEY breakthrough communications. Previously, he was Director of Communications at the Russell Sage Foundation and prior to that was Vice President and Director of Communications at Public Agenda. He has held a variety of positions at organizations such as The Harwood Institute for Public Innovation, The Pew Charitable Trusts, TCC Group and the Center for Social Policy and Community Development.
Thanks, Michael for this post. I think the point of concern you have about how some foundations view transparency is what I call the difference between transparency and accountability. To me, transparency is that just that — being transparent. But being accountable requires foundations to go one step beyond and both talk openly about what they are trying to accomplish and similarly showing what they are achieving, while also being willing to be held account for their work.
Thanks, Michael for this post. I think the point of concern you have about how some foundations view transparency is what I call the difference between transparency and accountability. To me, transparency is that just that — being transparent. But being accountable requires foundations to go one step beyond and both talk openly about what they are trying to accomplish and similarly showing what they are achieving, while also being willing to be held account for their work. For reasons outlined in an earlier post on the Philanthopic site by Brad Smith (http://bit.ly/9jcTU8), he says the Foundation Center chose not to take on the issue of accountability for Glasspockets.
Michael, Thanks for you comments on the post. I think you’re absolutely right when you say that until foundations are willing to open themselves up publicly to examination and critique, they won’t be understood or accepted as leaders in social change. This is one of the many power struggles that exist between foundations and the organizations they fund. The key thing from your post I think is that it can be rare that foundations do evaluate themselves, because no one is forcing them to do it, and that’s something that I think needs to change. I hope that the emphasis from my piece was that foundations should understand that they are already living in an environment where our work is fairly public, and that we have a responsibility to examine how we interact with the communities we intend to serve. If we can’t do that, the hope for a meaningful partnership is inevitably lost. I don’t think it’s going to be easy, organizations (both funders and non-profits) are extremely slow to change, and hesitant to give up any sort of control over their work. But I’m heartened at the amount of conversations around this issue, and I think discussing them openly and with each other is the first of many steps that can bring about change.