GlassPockets Announces New Transparency Levels: Leveling Up Your Practices

Janet Camarena is director of transparency initiatives at Candid.

6a00e54efc2f80883301b7c90b6cb7970b-150wi

Janet Camarena

It's an exciting moment for us here at GlassPockets, and for the field of philanthropy, as we’ve just reached the milestone of 100 foundations committing to work more transparently by participating and publicly sharing their “Who Has GlassPockets?” transparency self-assessment profiles on our website. Yesterday, the Walton Family Foundation (WFF) officially became our 100th participant. What you are seeing today is the result of a diligent process that started last summer, as WFF continually worked to improve the openness of its website. With clear pathways to connect directly with staff members, a knowledge center containing lessons learned as well as packaged “flashcards” containing easily shareable bits of information, and a new searchable grants database spanning its 31-year history, WFF is not starting small when it comes to openness. Transparency can be tricky territory for family foundation donors who may be more accustomed to privacy and anonymity when it comes to their giving, so it’s particularly exciting for us to reach the milestone of 100 published profiles thanks to a family foundation enthusiastically embracing a more transparent approach.

When we started with a handful of foundations and fewer than two dozen transparency indicators, it was more experiment than movement. Now that we’ve aggregated data on transparency trends among 100 participating foundations, it’s a good opportunity to pause and reflect on what we are learning from this data that could inform the way forward to a more transparent future for philanthropy.

Transparency Indicators Evolve

GlassPockets Road to 100

Earlier this year I observed that a promising trend we are seeing in the field is that more foundations are developing sections of their websites devoted to explaining how they work, what values they hold dear, and in some cases, how these values inform their work and operations. Among the 100 foundations that have taken and publicly shared their transparency assessments, 42 percent are now using their websites as a means to communicate values or policies that demonstrate an intentional commitment to transparency. As a result we recently added transparency values/policies as a formal indicator to our GlassPockets assessment. But once you have developed such a values or policy statement, how does a foundation live up to it?

That’s where we hope our “Who Has GlassPockets?” assessment will continue to help foundations create a roadmap to transparency. The assessment is not static and has evolved with the field. When we started in 2010, there were 23 transparency indicators based on an inventory of thousands of foundation websites. As we continue to observe website transparency trends, the assessment has now grown to 27 indicators. Aside from the newest indicator for transparency values/policies, based on the kinds of information that foundations are now starting to share, some other new indicators we added since inception are strategic plans, open licensing policies, and use of the Sustainable Development Goals framework(SDGs). And we expect that as the field continues to evolve, this list of indicators will grow as well.

As the list has grown longer, foundations frequently ask us which indicators are the right ones to start with. Some also tell us that they want to participate, but not until they have at least half or even three-quarters of the indicators on the list. Though we applaud striving to be more transparent, the intent of GlassPockets was never that it be considered a “one-size-fits-all” approach, or that we expected that a majority of the indicators be in place to participate. Rather, that the GlassPockets exercise would serve to surface it as a priority, help the foundation evolve its transparency over time, and ideally would be a process the institution revisits on a regular basis, updating the GlassPockets profile with more and more indicators as transparency improves.

New Transparency Levels and Badges

So to help foundations better understand how to get started and how to grow transparency practices over time, we analyzed the data we have been collecting, and some patterns about how transparency evolves in philanthropy are now becoming clearer. We also conducted advisor interviews with a number of GlassPockets participants to better understand what would be most motivational and helpful in this regard. After reviewing everything we’ve learned so far, we have identified three levels through which foundations pass as they chart their course to greater transparency – these represent core, advanced, and champion-level transparency practices that you can view on this chart.

Explore how the Transparency Indicators relate to each level

Core-level transparency practices represent data most commonly shared by participating foundations and are the best place for new participants to begin. Advanced-level transparency practices open up the way you work to the world and represent information shared by about 50 to 70 percent of participating foundations. Champion-level transparency practices, in place at fewer than half of participating foundations, represent information-sharing that is pushing existing boundaries of foundation transparency.

These new levels represent an optional guide that can be helpful to follow but it is not intended to be viewed as a formal set of requirements. As has always been the case, any foundation at any stage of its transparency journey is welcome to participate and chart its own course. However, to motivate participation and progress, GlassPockets will begin awarding Transparency Badges based on the transparency level attained. These badges will appear on the GlassPockets profile, and will also be made available for use on the foundation’s website. Since it is not a one-size-fits-all, all participating foundations will automatically receive the Core GlassPockets transparency badge, and those who attain Advanced (10-18 indicators) or Champion level (19 or more indicators) will receive a badge denoting the appropriate designation.

Learn About the Transparency Badges

On the Level

Based on the new levels described above, GlassPockets will soon be adding the new Transparency Badges to each profile. So, if it’s been awhile since you reviewed your “Who Has GlassPockets?” profile, or if you’re looking for motivation to improve your transparency, now’s the time to review your existing profile, or submit a new one to see how your foundation stacks up. For existing GlassPockets participants, May 28th is the deadline to review your profile and get any updates or changes in to us before we start making the transparency levels and badges visible on the GlassPockets website the week of June 3rd. To update your profile, you can fill out any new links or corrections on this submission form, or simply email me your changes. As always, new profiles can be added at any time and you can learn more about that process here.

And last, but certainly not least, big thanks and cheers to our existing GlassPockets participants for helping us reach this milestone, and a big welcome to those who will help us reach the next one!

-- Janet Camarena

About the author(s)

Senior Director of Learning Experience
Candid