Someone said to me today, "transparency, that's the big word today. It's a really big word." Indeed. Isn't your local paper covering the Wikileaks story? Who isn't talking about transparency? Well, one sector that talks about it too little is the nonprofit sector.
The reality is, that you can not keep anything hidden today. So why are so many non profits focused on what information they won't share? If you don't think donors would support you if they knew how operations were carried out, the level of waste in your processes or what your true administrative costs are, you are probably right. But the answer isn't to not be honest with donors. Fix what's wrong and then be comfortable with the truth and share it.
