You make good point. I agree that ‘transparency’ isn’t about selectively opening windows onto certain parts of the house when convenient – it is a glass house itself.

I want to assure anyone that is listening that FORGE isn’t doing this as an “experiment”. We consider, and have always considered, transparency to be both a responsibility and a way to doing business. Many of our staff have commented that what attracts them to FORGE’s management style is the this commitment to honesty – to being frank and open about our strengths, weaknesses, and mistakes.

This total transparency is what we consider the central feature of our ‘cool-looking’ website (thank you!). Each of our projects reports monthly, and these reports go directly onto each project’s blog in their full and unedited glory. One reporting sections asks for “Substantial Problems or Issues”. So for example, you can read about how 1 of our 2 preschools in the “Meheba Preschools” project has been facing attendance problems (http://forgenow.org/projects/2-meheba-preschools). Or, how our Mwange Computer Center has been suffering from shortages of solar power, a broken generator, and difficulty recruiting equal ratios of males and females (http://forgenow.org/projects/18-mwange-computer-trainin/posts). You can also read about and follow how FORGE deals with this issues, whether they improve over time, or whether a project or aspect of a project gets cut completely.

We believe that experiencing problems and issues is a reality of development work, and ours are all out there for the world to judge. And that’s how we’ve always done business (though it’s never been paid attention to the same way before!). I remember a year ago during tax season I posted a blog on how easy the IRS made it for organizations to cheat and steal (http://www.socialedge.org/blogs/forging-ahead/archive/2007/11/06/accountability). More than a few people felt I was out of my mind for writing that, but I felt like those are the things that nonprofits need to start addressing if we are to rebuild the trust that our sector needs to function properly.

I think that personally, a large part of the reason why I believe in this kind of honesty is that I was simply so idealistic when I started FORGE. Everything you read from and about nonprofit leaders focuses on how rewarding and inspiring the work is. I found plenty of rewards and inspiration, but I also found it to be brutally challenging on both personal and professional levels. I grew up with FORGE, and had to learn how to release some of my natural self-critiquing perfectionism. I think that my journey would have been easier if there were more (and more accessible) platforms and precedents for honesty, transparency, and the acceptance of a degree of imperfection in the sector.