Giving Compass' Take:

• Here are three types of transparency that are crucial to success in funder relationships with grantees: Organizational, process, and decision-making transparency. 

• How can transparency in an organization increase effectiveness? 

• Read more about how transparency benefits organizations. 

Building trust and respect in your grantmaker-grantee relationships, the qualities that lead to the most effective partnerships, means making your operations as transparent as possible. This is essential to narrowing the power gap, one of the Principles for Peak Grantmaking, and the reason we’ve assembled our member-exclusive guide, How to Be Transparent, Clear, and Responsive with Your Grantees.

Through research-based insights, proven tactics, and real-world examples, this resource outlines approaches for achieving three types of transparency: Organizational, Process, and Decision-Making. Here’s a rundown of what each type means.

Organizational transparency is the extent to which a grantmaker publicly shares information about itself, including funding priorities, staff, and current or previous grantees. To better your organizational transparency, review the kinds of information your organization shares publicly and the kinds that it doesn’t, then engage the entire organization in a discussion about why.

Process transparency is the extent to which a grantmaker explains and shares their processes relating to applying for, receiving, and reporting on a grant. Improving process transparency means sharing, proactively, details such as how long each step in the grantmaking process takes, milestones within the process, and the level of responsiveness grantees can expect from grantmaking staff.

Decision-making transparency is the extent to which a grantmaker clearly and proactively communicates about funding decisions, and other decisions important to a grantee.

Read the full article about transparency in organizations by Marc Schultz at PEAK Grantmaking.