From Transparency Talk, Glasspockets Find: A View of Transparency from the 2013 European Foundation Centre Conference:
In accepting the Compass Prize at the recent closing plenary session of the European Foundation Centre’s 2013 Annual General Assembly and Conference in Copenhagen, Dr. Rien van Gendt broached the topic of transparency. In his remarks, van Gendt observed that foundations need to stop thinking of transparency as something that is being forced upon them and rather accept it as beneficial. In the meantime, however, he urged foundations not to become so fixated on compliance that their performance suffers: “If we focus on what we do instead of on who we are, we can take the sting out of the one-dimensional public discussion about transparency and compliance.”