Webinar: Going Public: Overcoming the Foundation Transparency Challenge

This webinar, hosted by the United Philanthropy Forum and Foundation Center, will begin with a compelling case for greater transparency; provide an overview of the powerful and free tools designed to help you improve the transparency of your foundation’s online presence; demonstrate a free tool for assessing your foundation’s online transparency practices (how will yours stack up?); and highlight examples from foundation peers that have been active in creating greater openness at their foundations.

Calls for greater transparency and accountability in the philanthropic sector are nothing new, but today as people access greater quantities of information online, public expectation is rapidly growing about what information is made available. And today’s reality is that transparency and openness are not only trending, but revolutionizing the world around us. From user experience designed websites to Twitter to LinkedIn to the explosion of the blogosphere, shared networks and open data are transforming the way we shop, learn, and connect with each other. There is also the deeper conversation about the nature of openness in our philanthropic relationships versus just being transparent about our work. Openness referring to more of a relationship between philanthropy and their grantee partners and the communities they serve. We need to ask ourselves some important questions:

• Is philanthropy ready for this culture change?
• Is philanthropy getting left behind? 
• Are funders today truly harnessing the promise of openness that today’s digital and social platforms, crowd wisdom, and networked mindset hold for philanthropy?

While many of us generally agree that transparency is a virtue, figuring out how to assess and improve existing foundation transparency practices can be a challenge. Attend this webinar to learn about free tools that are designed to help philanthropy work more openly, efficiently, and effectively.

Attendees will:

• Explore the importance of transparency to contributing to greater foundation effectiveness.
• Learn how to approach achieving greater openness and transparency in a step-by-step way.
• Examine how to design your foundation website with transparency and openness in mind.
• Learn about the Glasspockets initiative and tools designed to help foundations assess and benchmark transparency practices, and how to create a free, customized transparency report containing strengths and areas for improvement.
• Become inspired by peer practices implemented by grantmakers working to improve transparency at their foundations.

Presenter: Janet Camarena, Director, Transparency Initiatives, Foundation Center

Please click here to register.

This webinar was originally scheduled for December 7, 2017.