Wednesday, April 16, 2014

Get into radical transparency

A challenge for any organisation with volunteer stakeholders - from national bodies to local community groups - is building stronger relationships of trust with your members.

A lot of that is always going to be judged by your visible successes, not to mention the quality of experience you offer to participants. But another part is ensuring that your members can see what the group is doing and have a chance to meaningfully contribute on their own terms.

I want to suggest that radical transparency and sharing builds trust, and hence support and participation.  

I recommend that core members of your group or organisation should be sharing something interesting that they’ve been up to on a weekly basis via Facebook, Twitter, a blog or other tools. It could be something very simple like a photo, or something you've already done for another purpose like a press release.

This can then be paralleled by longer-form updates, say on a newsletter, a blog, a website or whatever - for the purposes of this argument the format is irrelevant.

The key thing is that your supporters, friends and allies can have an insight into our work if they want it, they know where they can get it, and they can use this sharing as a basis for engaging you in dialogue.

Thoughts?

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