Lonehill: Beware - Apathy Is Fuelled By Lack Of Transparency

At first glance, the latest Lonehill email letter - Sent: Friday, September 21, 2007 4:02 PM - announcing 'Another Great Fun Day' conveys all the right messages to sponsors and key people responsible for the day... and rightly so. It looked pretty impressive.

Even more heartening is the announcement that 'substantial funds' were raised, which 'the LRA Board has decided will go towards purchasing much needed equipment and supplies for the Witkoppen Clinic on William Nicol Drive'. CHARITY has always been one of the key drivers of this initiative.

However, my antennae (or hackles) raise when I see a total lack of specifics on reporting of the funds raised on such a day.

I almost didn't comment on this, at first feeling to myself - '..so who really cares..?'.

Well, I recognise that for one having been so committed to this community initiative that such feeling is a very dangerous sign of apathy setting in. And, if that is how I feel, how do people feel who are not as slightly passionate about this initiative as I... ?

So here's my warning to the LRA... lack of transparency will lose you the good ground you are reclaiming.

A simple transparent accounting report on the Fun Day could have said something like this: '..2000 paying entrants attended, R60000 was raised, R30 000 has been donated to X on behalf of the Lonehill Community... and R30 000 has gone to purchasing new mowers for our environment efforts.'

Community reporting of such initiatives should be OPEN & TRANSPARENT to a fault.

As should monthly directors meetings, financials, regular update of contributor numbers, and key highlights and concerns, be regularly reported openly to all stakeholders. It is a COMMUNITY initiative, after all.

When transparency is lacking... apathy is fuelled.

Methinks it is about time for another OPEN LRA feedback meeting for its publics. But this time, allow the stakeholders to ask their questions and debate issues that they want to debate.... with the LRA directors listening, answering questions and learning what their community wants. This aside from the 'ALL STAKEHOLDERS' concerted input session that I continually call for on this blog.

And talk about raising my hackles. The abovementioned email also once again highlighted the laughable and inept mediocrity of our internal approach to the standards of marketing required of this initiative when they say goodbye to... 'our marketing guru'..!

Well, knock me over with a feather, this commment must have been written by our phantom 'communications guru'. The one we've never had, which has been the other long-standing achilles heel of our initiative.

I for one think that it is a great injustice to lump one of the most disturbingly consistent INEPTITUDES of recent LRA Boards onto the shoulders of a nice young lady with a simple penchant for newsletter compilation, graphic design and advertising.

The biggest problem created in the recent past is precisely because too many inept people have considered themselves to be local 'marketing gurus' with self-proclaimed maketing degrees and/or corporate marketing experience who felt that they were ordained to experiment with our LRA funds... and who have sadly delivered diddly-squat of any major marketing import that can be pointed to in the past three odd years. In fact, most of our community initiative's money squandered has been due to the amateurish marketing ignorance and arrogance of these 'marketing gurus'.

Lack of transparency of reporting of update and/or new contributor numbers and contribution to bottom-line profitability generated from each LRA 'marketing campaign' consistently fails to acknowledge any accountability for good or poor performance from the funds spent on these 'gurus' foibles. Quote: 'Good marketers measure'. Seth Godin.

The acknowledged marketing guru of the 20th century - Philip Kotler - puts the problem like this: 'Marketing professionals lack accountability and hence take short term decisions.' The LRA can get a clue of what marketing skill is really required for this community initiative in this extract from the article 5 Lessons From Philip Kotler - 'Kotler recommends the creation of a marketing scorecard that captures the number of new customers added every year, measures the satisfaction level of current customers and indicates the brand health'.

The community grapevine has it that those responsible for the inept deliverables pointed to in these blog posts are being found out - slowly but surely. Would be neat to hear our LRA directors openly highlighting what is really happening within our management structures rather than leaving it to the grapevine to buzz wih conjecture. I repeat, I stand by every comment made in these blogs... and until the inept areas of delivery are removed from the LRA operating structures we will continue to dumb-down our community initiative to the mediocre standards of those responsible and struggle to cross the chasm to be the quality of initiative that we can be. The LRA strategy should be to remove the weak and bring on the strong. Our families lives depend on it.

But then... why should I care?

Regards
Trevor Nel - 011 705-2790
Lonehill Resident