Problem: Non-profits often struggle with opaque internal processes that lead to knowledge loss, hinder efficient onboarding, and erode donor and stakeholder trust.
Solution: By adopting a "working in public" approach—recording and openly sharing decision-making processes and workflows—non-profits can preserve institutional knowledge, enhance transparency, and foster stronger collaboration and trust.
Imagine if every new team member at your non-profit could rewind time and watch how key decisions were made. What if donors and stakeholders could see the thoughtful process behind each project, instilling confidence in your organization’s integrity? This is the promise of “working in public.” By recording your team’s processes (for example, using tools like Loom to capture screen recordings with voice) and posting them on a platform like YouTube, you create a living archive of your organization’s decision-making and operations. This essay explores why non-profits should embrace working in public, how it accelerates growth and trust, and how forward-thinking organizations have thrived through radical transparency.
What Does “Working in Public” Mean?
“Working in public” involves openly documenting and sharing the internal workings of your organization. For a non-profit, this could include recording planning meetings, project debriefs, strategy discussions, or even day-to-day workflows, then making those recordings accessible (publicly on YouTube or within a community). Unlike traditional opaque operations, working in public pulls back the curtain on how decisions are made. Companies such as Levels Health literally share “almost all of [their] thinking publicly,” including internal all-hands meetings and even founders’ working sessions. In practice, a tool like Loom makes this easy – team members can record their screen and voice while walking through a document or explaining a decision, and then instantly share that video. Embracing this approach means your non-profit’s processes are no longer confined to meeting notes or memories, but captured in rich detail for anyone who needs them.
Preserving Knowledge and Smoother Onboarding
One of the strongest arguments for working in public is knowledge preservation. Non-profits often face high staff and volunteer turnover; when people leave, their institutional knowledge can leave with them. By recording processes and decisions, you create a knowledge library that future team members can tap into. This makes onboarding new staff faster and more comprehensive – rather than sifting through sparse written notes, newcomers can watch the actual discussions that led to a project’s current state.
Every guideline, decision rationale, and meeting agenda should be captured in a public handbook or recorded video, so new team members can quickly understand context and history. This thorough documentation culture enables your team to stay aligned without constant meetings, and new employees can get up to speed by reviewing the handbook and relevant videos on their own time.
Scaling Through Reduced Knowledge Loss: When your processes are recorded, the departure of a team member is less likely to create a knowledge vacuum. For example, if your grant writing committee records their strategy sessions and reasoning, the next person taking over fundraising can review those videos and understand why certain approaches were taken. The organization doesn’t have to reinvent the wheel each time a role changes hands. In essence, working in public creates a repository of organizational memory. Teams can build on past insights instead of losing them, allowing the non-profit to scale its impact more quickly.
Improved Decision Accountability: Moreover, having a video record forces the team to clarify and justify decisions as they make them – nobody wants to look unclear or ill-prepared on a recording. Being transparent forces rigor. Knowing that their updates and discussions will be shared, your team holds themselves to higher standards of preparation and clarity. This rigor not only improves the quality of decisions but also means the rationale is well-articulated for posterity. Future team members can follow the logic in these recordings, making training easier and avoiding the confusion that often comes from cryptic one-line notes in a document.
Transparency as a Trust Builder with Stakeholders
Non-profits thrive on trust – donors, grantors, and the communities they serve need to believe in the organization’s integrity and competence. Embracing transparency by sharing your processes can significantly enhance that trust. When stakeholders see how you arrive at decisions, how funds are allocated, or how programs are developed, it demystifies your operations. Rather than just seeing outcomes, they witness the care and diligence behind the scenes.
When you publicly share internal discussions or planning sessions (in addition to financials and reports), you demonstrate that your organization has nothing to hide. Stakeholders are more likely to support an initiative when they understand the thoughtful process that led there. For instance, a donor might be more comfortable funding a project after watching the program team’s recorded brainstorming session, seeing their passion and strategic thinking first-hand.
Concrete Benefits of Openness: Research backs up the benefits of transparency. A study by GuideStar found that “transparent nonprofits received 53% more in contributions” than those that were less transparent. This remarkable boost in donations shows that people respond positively to openness. By working in public, you are not only educating your audience about your mission and challenges; you’re also building credibility. Viewers of your process videos can see your team’s expertise and dedication, which can translate into greater willingness to contribute funds or volunteer time.
By viewing your regular video updates and recorded meetings, anyone – including potential supporters or future team members – can trace how you navigated challenges and made decisions. Share quarterly strategy reviews or project post-mortems on YouTube. Such radical openness signals confidence and honesty, which fosters a deep trust among those who matter most to your mission.
Fostering Collaboration and Innovation
When a non-profit works in public, it sends an open invitation for collaboration and idea-sharing. By sharing processes on a public platform, you allow not just your team but also volunteers, peer organizations, and even beneficiaries to engage with your work in new ways. This openness can lead to innovation in the sector, as insights spread beyond your organization’s walls.
Breaking Silos and Sharing Knowledge: Non-profits often tackle big, complex problems. No single organization has all the answers, which is why sharing what you learn is so powerful. By posting, say, a video of your team’s debrief after a community event, other organizations can learn from your successes and mistakes – and you can learn from theirs if they do the same. It creates a virtuous cycle of learning where the entire community benefits from each group’s experiences. This approach is akin to the open-source philosophy in software, where developers publish their code for anyone to inspect, use, or improve. Just as open-source projects accelerate innovation by pooling knowledge, open process sharing can accelerate progress in the non-profit space by preventing duplicate mistakes and sparking new ideas.
Inviting External Input: Another advantage is the opportunity for external feedback. When you share a Loom recording of your planning session on YouTube, you might get insightful comments from viewers outside your organization. Stakeholders or experts in your community might chime in with suggestions, or a volunteer who watched might propose a solution you hadn’t considered. This broader participation can lead to creative partnerships and solutions. Essentially, working in public turns your planning process into a two-way conversation with your community, rather than a one-way presentation of final results.
Cultivating a Supportive Community: Sharing your journey can also inspire others to rally around your cause. People often support not just what you are doing, but how you are doing it. If your non-profit is seen as collaborative and transparent, like an open book, it encourages a feeling of shared ownership. Your supporters feel more involved and informed, and potential collaborators see you as a progressive partner.
These examples show that working in public isn’t a theoretical ideal; it’s a practical strategy that world-class organizations use to great effect. Non-profits may not have the same scale or tech focus, but the principles apply just as well, if not more. In many ways, a non-profit stands to gain even greater trust and collaborative goodwill by adopting these practices, because transparency aligns perfectly with the ethos of serving the public good.
Overcoming Challenges and Concerns
Admittedly, working in public can feel daunting at first. Non-profit leaders might worry about potential downsides, such as exposing mistakes, inviting criticism, or revealing sensitive information. However, these challenges can be managed, and the benefits far outweigh the risks. Here are some common concerns and how to address them:
- Confidentiality: It’s true that not everything can be shared publicly. Sensitive donor data, personnel issues, or early-stage plans might need to stay private. The solution is to choose carefully which processes to record and share. You can start by sharing videos that explain decisions after they’re made, rather than live-streaming every internal debate. Levels Health, for example, shares investor updates with a 12-month delay to balance transparency with competitive considerations. Your non-profit might decide to share project post-mortems or quarterly strategy discussions, but not internal HR meetings. Establish guidelines for what content is appropriate to make public.
- Fear of Mistakes or Criticism: Working in public means your missteps are also visible. However, this can humanize your organization. Stakeholders generally understand that no group is perfect; in fact, showing how you learn from mistakes can increase trust. If a project didn’t go as planned, a candid debrief video demonstrating what you learned can impress viewers with your commitment to improvement. Encourage a culture that views feedback as a gift – critical comments from viewers might highlight areas to improve. By embracing criticism openly, you show maturity and dedication to your mission.
- Time and Effort: Will recording and uploading videos create extra work? Initially, there is some effort to set up this habit. But tools like Loom make it incredibly quick – recording a Loom is often faster than writing a long explanatory email. The key is to integrate recording into your routine: for instance, instead of a long write-up after a meeting, record a 5-minute summary and upload it. Over time, as your team becomes comfortable, this will feel natural. Also, consider that the time spent recording is offset by time saved in the future (fewer repetitive explanations and quicker onboarding for others). To streamline, you can assign someone to lightly edit or index videos (e.g. add titles or timestamps) before posting, but avoid the trap of perfectionism. These videos don’t need high production value – authenticity is more important than polish.
- Information Overload: If you record everything, will anyone actually watch it all? Probably not, and that’s okay. Think of your public process videos as an archive: people will retrieve what they need when they need it. You can help by organizing content (e.g., playlists on YouTube for different project areas, or an internal wiki page linking key videos). Over time, you’ll learn which types of content are most valued by viewers (both internal and external) and can prioritize those. Even if only a handful of people find a given video useful, it’s still doing its job. Remember, the goal is not high view counts; it’s preserving context and being open.
How Non-Profits Can Start Working in Public
Adopting a public-working culture is a journey. Here are some actionable steps to get started:
- Start Small: Identify one upcoming meeting or process to record. For example, it could be a planning session for an event or a budget allocation discussion. Let the team know you’ll record it to share later, so everyone is on the same page.
- Use Simple Tools: Sign up for Loom (or a similar screen recording app) and practice recording a short video. Loom allows you to record your screen, voice, and optionally your face. It’s as easy as clicking record and then sharing a link. Once recorded, you can download the video or directly share the Loom link. For wider accessibility, upload the video to YouTube (you can keep it unlisted at first if you’re nervous about going fully public).
- Explain the Context: When posting the video, add a description or intro slide explaining what the video is. This helps viewers (whether team members or public) know why this process was recorded and what they can learn from it. For example: “In this video, our Outreach Committee discusses the criteria for selecting partner schools for our program. We recorded this to document our decision process for future team members and interested supporters.”
- Promote Internally and Externally: Share the video link with your team and invite them to watch when convenient. Also consider sharing it with key stakeholders or on your social media (if appropriate). Highlight that you’re trying out a new transparency initiative and welcome feedback. This sets the expectation that you value openness.
- Encourage Engagement: Ask your team and even external viewers for their thoughts or questions on the content. This could be done in the YouTube comments, a Slack channel for your volunteers, or a follow-up email. Engaging with any feedback shows that the videos aren’t just for show – they are conversation starters.
- Iterate and Expand: After a few recordings, gather your team and discuss what’s working and what isn’t. Maybe you found that 30-minute raw meeting videos are too long – you could switch to recording 5-minute summary recaps instead. Or you might discover that certain topics (like strategy talks) got a lot of positive response, so you decide to do those regularly. Use this learning to refine your approach and gradually expand the practice to more areas of your work.
By taking these steps, working in public will gradually become a natural part of your non-profit’s culture. It doesn’t happen overnight, but each video you share builds a treasure trove of insight and opens another window for the world to understand and trust your mission.
Conclusion
In an age where information is abundant and trust is scarce, non-profits have a golden opportunity to lead by example with radical transparency. Working in public by recording processes and sharing them openly can transform the way your organization scales and connects with its community. It makes your institutional knowledge durable and accessible, smoothing the path for growth and new team members. It demonstrates integrity and accountability, strengthening donor confidence and public trust – indeed, transparency has been linked to significantly higher contributions and support. And it turns your organization into a platform for collaboration and innovation, where ideas can cross-pollinate and everyone can contribute to the greater good.
Yes, working in public requires courage and a shift in mindset. There will be moments of discomfort as you expose the inner workings of your non-profit to scrutiny. But the payoff – a stronger, smarter, and more trusted organization – is well worth it. By demystifying your work, you invite others to join you, learn from you, and support you. In the end, embracing transparency is not just a tactical decision; it’s a reflection of faith in your mission and your team.
Actionable Encouragement: Don’t wait for perfection. Take the first step – record a Loom video during your next team discussion and share it. See how it feels and observe the reactions. Chances are, you’ll wish you had started sooner. By working in public, your non-profit can become a beacon of transparency and impact, inspiring confidence and collaboration to drive your mission forward.