Communication and transparency are essential for the creation and maintenance of consumer trust, not to mention inter-office cohesion.  As a new social enterprise with offices divided by an ocean, a rain forest, and a civil war, Arudo Yat is still struggling to find the best balance between efficiency and transparency.  In the following, I will try to isolate what our biggest barriers are as well as some possible solutions.  As always, any input is greatly appreciated.

1) Too much trust.  Our U.S. office only has direct contact with our Country Manager and Secretary in Uganda.  We rely on them to accurately convey whatever messages we send to every member.  Moreover, we rely on them to equitably distribute whatever funds we send.  That’s problematic.  While we trust our staff with our lives (literally), trust is no replacement for mechanisms to ensure transparency and accountability.  The problem with trust is that, instead of being “an organization of laws, not of people” (to tweak a phrase), trust relies on people instead of laws.  Although we are confident our communications and financial transactions are being carried out responsibly, we have no doubt our members would like and benefit from increased transparency.   If everyone can communicate horizontally, there is virtually no way for mistakes to go uncorrected.

2) Language & Literacy.  In order to address #1, we decided to give Gmail accounts and cell phones to each of our members.  We reasoned that access to communication tools was enough to get ideas and comments flowing in both directions.  We were wrong.  It turns out that only our Country Manager and Secretary are literate (back to square one).  Further, members that are literate in Luo are not necessarily literate in English, so a text message from the U.S. office is just $0.08 down the drain.

3) Confusion of Costs.  From Ugandan fiscal policies meant to devalue the Shilling (UGX) to massive infusions of aid money that spark inflation, the foreign exchange rate is constantly and significantly in a state of flux.  Add exchange rate spreads to the mix (thanks, Western Union) and you get multiple and conflicting local currency payouts which can be difficult to keep track of.  This may be easy for an international accountant to adjust to, but it confuses the heck out of our U.S. office, which then passes confusion (and sometimes anger) to our Uganda office.  For instance, we think we’re sending 844,000 UGX to our members (the ForEx rate), but Western Union pays out 842,628 UGX (minus the exchange rate spread).  Having already notified the members they would be receiving 844,000 UGX, the natural assumption is that the remaining 1,372 UGX has ‘disappeared’ (the equivalent of 3.5 days labor based on the national minimum wage of 16 UGX per hour).

Together these three issues constitute the greatest challenges to our transparency and efficacy.  We expect to grow increasingly transparent with experience, but we also realize that some issues – like member illiteracy – cannot be overcome by keeping better spreadsheets.  We may very well have to be comfortable with miscommunication and confusion until we can put our members through school.

Have comments or suggestions?  Feel free to post them on this blog, email us directly at Ben@arudoyat.org, or share them with us via Twitter (@arudoyat).

Arudo Yat believes in the ingenuity and passion of the people that live throughout this region.  Resourcefulness under such circumstances, not only spells the difference between comfort and poverty, but life and death.  Accordingly, we believe it is the duty of every global citizen to extend the helpful hands of empathy, understanding and partnership.  With your help, we aim to do that and more.

We first announced our current Necklaces for New Life program in September, 2008.  Since then, we’ve remitted over US$3,000 to our members in and around Gulu, Uganda.  An office is currently under construction in Gulu, and we plan to set up an additional office in Kampala by the end of the year.  Together, these offices will conduct market research to inform our domestic product lines, distribute remitted revenue from international sales, and coordinate the implementation of new programs.  

Altogether, it is a fascinating time to work with a social enterprise.  The world is becomming smaller and more comprehensible every day.  Social networks have connected us such that we can, not only talk to anyone anywhere in the world, but do business with them.  Join us in taking advantage of this incredible opportunity…