Lesson Six: Transparency Is About Painting a Holistic Picture

 

Because we naturally expect organizations to talk about their successes, we tend to only hear the word “transparency” applied to situations in which organizations talk about their challenges or failures. But it would be a huge mistake to equate transparency with the sharing of negative information. Transparency does not mean being willing to be open about problems - it means being willing to be open about anything.   

 

If you are to take “transparency” to mean “a willingness to show your warts” you are going to end up with an audience that thinks that you are a pretty ugly duckling. And if you only use your voice to talk about the things that go wrong, you will soon become the boy (girl?) who cried wolf.

 

To me, transparency means “a willingness to show who you are, warts and all”, which is very different. Nonprofits wouldn’t be doing what they do if they didn’t have a lot of very positive things to communicate. This work is hard, it is full of ups and downs, but at the end of the day, we have a wealth of things to be positive about. The good comes along with the struggle and the uncertainty – it's all part of the package.  For transparency to be real, it’s critical to paint a holistic picture.

 

The best part? What you say about your successes will be viewed much less skeptically in light of your challenges. No one trusts perfection – just ask Angelina Jolie.