Communications and Learning Blog

Go ahead. Take a look in our pockets. They're made of glass, so you can see all the way through them.

We just got a congratulatory email from Janet Camarena, director of the San Francisco office of the Foundation Center and head of its Glass Pockets initiative. "Congratulations," Janet wrote, "your pockets are the clearest we've uncovered thus far and we'll be tweeting along those lines tomorrow."

We are proud and honored to be acknowledged for this because we think glass pockets are a very important thing for a foundation to have and we've worked hard to make ours transparent. A lot of foundations much larger and better known than Meyer Memorial Trust are among those the Foundation Center has examined, so it's no small feat for us to have achieved this status. Check out Meyer Memorial Trust's Glass Pockets profile! This move to accountability and transparency is changing philanthropy in fundamental ways.

We used the development of our new website as an opportunity to challenge ourselves to meet all 23 practices the Foundation Center has identified as crucial to transparency and accountability in philanthropy. We also employ all six types of online communication vehicles tracked by the center.

Glass Pockets is an example of how technology can help drive societal change. I've said it before and I'll say it again: is this an amazing time to be alive or what?