Thursday, February 25, 2010

Best Definition of Transparency in Associations

Finally ... a great definition about transparency in associations ... by Dave Phillips, in his Chairman's article in REALTOR AE magazine (Winter 2010): [emphasis mine]

"The first step is to understand what transparency means in an organizational context. In the past transparency simply meant that you freely shared information with your members, but today it means much more.

More than telling the simple truth about what you did, transparency is the act of making known your intentions - what you are thinking about doing, how you are planning to think about it, who is going to be involved, and why you are thinking about doing it.

Then, after you have completed whatever it is you set out to do, you have to tell members what you did and why. The new transparency is no longer just about allowing members to see what the association has done; it's about inviting them to observe the process, and even to get involved."

2 comments:

Dave Phillips said...

Thanks for the post on transparency. I looked for a definition to steal, but there was none, so I created one. Glad you liked it.

Derek said...

Thanks for sharing this post. I think that the scariest part for organizations is the "inviting" part of transparency.