A Model for Radical Transparency

There's something really special going on.

This "economic crisis" is hitting charitable organizations hard, as we see in so much of the news coverage and in our past reflections. We watched Changemakers fall as one of the first victims, and the online community buzzed about what it means for other non-profits.

As we all know, Changemakers was not alone in their struggles. Social Edge, one of our most favorite online communities, hosts a number of blogs by industry experts and social entrepreneurs, and many have discussed the impact of the recession on the third sector. But Forging Ahead takes it to a whole new level.

The blog is written by Kjerstin Erickson, founder of FORGE, a nonprofit working to help refugees in Zambia. She spoke of organization challenges, communications opportunities, and the overall lessons she learned as she grew her innovative organization. But in October she did something drastic: She admitted she was in trouble:

"So, conventional wisdom says that a nonprofit should never put all of its cards on the table - that showing your weaknesses is akin to shooting yourself in the foot"... "If you reveal your vulnerabilities, people won't have faith in you and won't want to invest in you."

"Well for FORGE, it's time to send conventional wisdom to hell. The truth is that though our programs have never been stronger, our bank accounts have never been lower. We're in trouble"...

"Since this economy will be hard on a lot of us, I've decided to share my story of how FORGE is trying (if not yet succeeding) to fight through this. We've decided to throw discretion to the wind and bring our struggle to the public. If we're lucky, it will draw more people to the importance of the cause. If we're not, at least we'll go down swinging. Either way, we hope that what we learn can help whoever listens.

In the posts to come, I'll be talking about how we got to this unsavory place, what we'd do again, what we did wrong, what we're doing to fix it, and the pain of the actions we have to take to stay alive. I hope that this will help some people who are going through similar struggles, or help others to avoid them completely."

Over the past month, she's been open an honest in explaining what she sees as the organization's mistakes and lessons learned. She's even shared figures. Other bloggers took notice. Soon Kjerstin found herself co-blogging with a pro-bono consultant who is being blunt, open and honest in publicly judging FORGE and the case to "rescue it."

It's an amazing experiment in radical transparency, and its working. Kjerstin and every reader of the blog is learning a lot about how to communicate and cope in the recession. I think the Meyer Memorial Trust's blog puts it best when Communications & Learning Director Marie Deatherage wrote:

"It's important on a number of levels. It's an amazingly fascinating story. It provides insight into financial challenges facing nonprofits right now. It illustrates the power of collaboration. It reveals how donors think and behave. And it provides a model for radical transparency in communication."