Image courtesy of ExtraFunky

Almost a year ago, I wrote a blog post entitled “The Non-Profit Quarterly Report.” In this post, I argued that nonprofit organizations should offer online quarterly reports, and mimic the transparency exemplified by Jonathan Schwartz’ online quarterly reports. (Jonathan is the CEO of Sun Microsystems.) John Maeda, President of the Rhode Island School of Design and social media advocate, argues that “in many cases complete clarity should be a leader’s goal rather than complete transparency.”

If you combine the concepts of organizational clarity with transparency and inclusionary decision making, then you create a new type of organization:

The Open Source Organization

One organization has stepped up to the plate to show us how it’s done: PresenTense Group.

The PresenTense Group calls itself an “open source organization.”  Co-founder Ariel Beery defines an Open Source Organization as one that “enables all members to add to it, change it, modify it and improve it. Everyone benefits from the intellectual property of the organization’s members. The whole point is to make it as collaborative and idea-generated as possible.”

In mid-September, I received this email asking me to participate in a discussion of what PresenTense should be concerned about in the coming year:

There were three ways to participate in the discussion: I could have walked down the street to the Tagging Party, viewed the Party live via webcam, or clicked on the link and “tagged” the key ideas that I care about. This is an example one of the most inclusionary processes I can imagine, as well as superior utilization of technology for stakeholder inclusion and engagement.

This is just one example of how PresenTense adheres to its open source philosophy. Here are others:

• All projects begin with an open call for a steering committee. For example, an idea for a magazine section about “philanthropy and the Jewish world” grew into a new steering committee. Steering committees solicit information and input from others.

• Every aspect of programming is open sourced: each issue of PresenTense magazine, the PresenTense Institute, and the speakers.

• The yearly workplan itself is open sourced via PresenTense networks. PresenTense uses the input to create a general plan, asks for comments, and incorporates comments into the final workplan.

• PresenTense plans to offer further transparency by posting quarterly staff reports online, and asking for feedback and comments.

Technology is critical to being as inclusionary as possible when sharing and soliciting information. Whenever possible, PresenTense utilizes technology to include stakeholders. All educational seminars are “live tweeted,” and most are filmed and streamed live. According to Beery, “the main challenge is figuring out the the information technology issues related to open collaboration.”

And what arose from the Tagging Party and discussion? These ideas were fed into its blueprint for the year to come, which is available for viewing online  here. You can also read an article about their commitment to being an Open Source Organization here.

Transparency + Clarity + Inclusionary Decision-Making =

The Open Source Organization

When will nonprofits become open-sourced? What is the critical technology needed for open participation? What is preventing nonprofits from moving towards and open source organization? In the spirit of this post, I’m looking forward to your comments and a discussion of this concept – and incorporating your ideas back into the blog post!

Further food for thought:

Asking Questions about Transparency

Leaders Should Strive for Clarity, Not Just Transparency

About PresenTense: a grassroots social entrepreneurship venture founded in 2005 to develop and promote innovative and new ideas in the world and inspire the Jewish people. They accomplish this through educational programming, the PresenTense Magazine, and the PresenTense Institute.

The direct marketing agency Epsilon just released a new study by ROI Research revealing reasons why people most often unsubscribe from email lists, and the rates at which they unsubscribe. Not surprisingly, the most often-cited reason (67%) is irrelevancy of emails. The second highest reason (64%) was high frequency of emails, and the third most-cited reason (50%) was fear that their email addresses were being sold or shared. Conducted by ROI Research, the study is based on an April 2009 survey of over 4000 consumers in 13 countries.

Image courtesy of emarketer

Image courtesy of Online Media Daily

In essence, the reasons most email list subscribers unsubscribe boils down to:

• receiving messaging content that is irrelevant to the reader
• not understanding the needs of the customer
• mistrust of the company sending the email

If your company or organization uses email lists, then why not use social media to cut down those unsubscribe rates!

Social media platforms (Facebook, twitter, blogs, MySpace) create conversations, which tell you exactly what the readers want. Use the conversations with your customers/fans/clients/donors to inform the content of your email messaging.  Are certain blog posts shared frequently online, while others die the fate of the unseen post? Why is that? Do you receive lots of comments on certain topics or videos? Utilize the information you learn from your social media interactions so that email messaging won’t suffer from irrelevant content.

Social media relies on trust because it is incredibly transparent. Due to the nature of the medium, people search for information about you before following your blog, Facebook page, or joining your company’s social network. They’ll “out” you if your company’s activities are not completely transparent, and become your biggest fans if you are. Remember the controversy over the fact that some Twitter users have “ghost twitterers,” who post to Twitter under the actual user’s name? However, if they find value in the engagement, they will pass that value along and bring their friends to you as well.

Use social media to allay the fear, once and for all, that your organization will never, ever sell or share the names of its email list subscribers. Write a blog post about it. Create a conversation about why that isn’t your organization’s policies and how you value the privacy of all your subscribers. Refer to these conversations in your email messages and ask email subscribers to contact you directly online if they want to ask further questions about privacy.

Remember the “golden rules” of social media: Be Yourself. Be Transparent. Listen. Engage.

You can’t listen and engage in an email blast, but you can take the information from listening and engaging on social networks, and use that to make your email messaging relevant and valuable to your stakeholders.

Do you have other ideas about how social media can decrease email unsubscribe rates? Please share them in the comments!

I just read Jonathan Schwartz’s blog (CEO, Sun Microsystems) and I’m blown away.  In his post of October 30, 2008, he reviews and explains the highs and lows of the past quarter. He addresses the obvious stakeholder questions: why were gross margins lower, what were the highlights and lowlights, and basic concerns he’s hearing from customers. We can get some of this information from Investor Relations, and others from the quarterly reports. But what Jonathan is doing is truly fantastic: he’s letting in stakeholders to company issues, and because it is in blog form, asking them to discuss the good and the bad. In this post, he is

• Actively listening to his stakeholders (he lists customer concerns this quarter)
• Respecting the stakeholder by being transparent, honest and accessible
• Offering valuable insight into the workings of the corporation
• Beginning a discussion (readers can respond with comments to Jonathan via the blog post. Oh, and they did!)

I love the idea of the transparent quarterly report. How can we extrapolate this to non-profit organization?

There are risks to non-profit quarterly (public) reports: it is risky to reveal the financial situation of a non-profit to its funders/stakeholders, it is risky to share funding sources with others (who may poach them), and it is doubly hard to admit when programs or campaigns fail to reach their goals (as this could affect future funding).  How can non-profits offer a public quarterly report and still keep all the funders happy?

• Use this opportunity to write about the highlights, lowlights and customer/client/funder concerns of the past quarter. You have the opportunity to honestly give a “state of the non-profit” to those who have a vested interest in its success.

• Assess the programmatic ROI each quarter. Where is the greatest return on investment? Highlight a great return and thank the foundation/donor publicly on the blog. If they are currently funding you, this can help secure your funding stream.

• Offer other funding opportunities in the program report: note what more resources would enable the organization to do on top of its current outcomes.

• Being honest about potential shortfalls in outcomes is critical for transparency. If your job training program had low enrollment, talk about that, and address potential stakeholder and funder concerns. Head off a possible breach of the relationship by pulling the funders and other stakeholders into the conversation and alerting them at the earliest possible times. Ask them for comments to the blog.

• Offer next quarter’s predictions. What will be the challenges the organization will face? Outcomes hopefully completed? Upcoming activities?

Invite comments. Get ideas, feedback on the report, and integrate them into the organization’s work. Let me know if you institute a non-profit quarterly report, and the feedback that you get from your stakeholders.