Bright Ideas

Innovation through Stubborn Commitment

June 24, 2011 by Ted Fickes

Thinking about innovation lately. Not just what it is and if/how/why it is good but rather the factors that create a culture of innovation.

Innovation defined by Merriam-Webster Dictionary — Innovation defined by the Merriam-Webster Dictionary

A lot has been written about managing to create and foster an innovation-friendly organization (more on that below). Great resources and research out there.

But it seems that sometimes – maybe most of the time – innovation needs a champion that is just really committed. Or stubborn. Someone wants to see a certain result and won’t take “no” for an answer. Often, there is a reason for the “no” and it takes a new way of doing things to get to the goal.

Recently, I wrote about “Innovate and Thrive: The Future of Nonprofits” by Randal Moss and David Neff. Moss and Neff take a hard look at how to design and maintain a culture that focuses on innovation. Of course, innovation for the sake of innovation is not the point. Yet most every organization and business – from coolio tech startup to retail to auto repair shop to restaurant – is constantly competing, coping with change and trying to, well, keep its head above water in its ever-shifting environment.

Moss and Neff do a great job covering some key pieces of innovation culture and ways to design that culture into the organization. Design – of processes, positions and programs – seems intrinsic to an innovation-friendly environment.

Sometimes, though, you just have to be committed enough to an idea to break past the “usual” way of doing things, change your framework and reach your goal in a new way. [Read more…] about Innovation through Stubborn Commitment

Jim Gilliam on Life, the Internet and the Power of People

June 7, 2011 by Ted Fickes

Jim Gilliam spoke this morning at Personal Democracy Forum and of all the talks here and at other conferences I have been to having anything to do with anything – especially technology – it was one of the most moving and powerful yet. This one hit home for personal reasons as well as professional. If you’ve been around the field for a while you know of Jim’s work but I didn’t know the full story.

Jim understands what real leadership and vision are about…and the incredible results that are possible when people work together.

http://cdn.livestream.com/embed/pdf2011?layout=4&clip=pla_8a026681-a944-4459-a735-6ff526f72b5a&color=0xe7e7e7&autoPlay=false&mute=false&iconColorOver=0x888888&iconColor=0x777777&allowchat=true

Be well. Take care of those around you. And add value to the world.

Testing, testing, testing…is this message on?

May 30, 2011 by Ted Fickes

So you’re sitting there lamenting the somewhat lethargic results of recent email campaigns and wondering if a little tweak to your email or landing page would improve results. Maybe change up the subject line – add or remove the organization. Maybe add a photo or two to the message. Maybe change the placement of a link or form or call to action on a landing page. Would that get more conversions you wonder? There has to be an easy way to bump this up, you think to yourself.

So you post an email to a handy helpful email list largely made up of folks doing similar work asking if a subject line change would help. The feedback is extensive but largely anecdotal. Hardly anyone offers up actual data and most of the stories are second or third hand… “well, a group I used to work with put the name of the organization in the subject line and it helped a little, I think.”

And you think, “well, that good but it’s not exactly the same situation I’m dealing with here. It’s a good story but doesn’t exactly apply to my list.”

My god, man… then why not test it on your list!

The thing is, testing on one’s own list and pages is pretty darn easy (though we can make it quite complicated and involved, sometimes for good reason and other times not) but rarely done.

Okay, so the ease of testing depends on the tools at hand. If your email system/online CRM is pretty unwieldy or you just don’t know how to use it then little tweaks here and there can be massive potholes in the road, not small bumps. If you don’t know how to move things around on your site – or have the staff to do so – then little changes can be tough.

Yet what I’ve found is more often a lack of interest or curiosity about testing. More often, folks are resigned to the results they get or, if not sure, just don’t know how to proceed. What to test? How to set it up? Is it worth the time?

Valid questions all. But I think the lack of a learning culture is more the culprit. More on that in a future post but first… what to test. [Read more…] about Testing, testing, testing…is this message on?

Diversifying Revenue Through Earned Income

May 27, 2011 by Ted Fickes

Trey and I have long believed that many nonprofits have untapped opportunities to develop new revenue streams to supplement and strengthen their existing revenue profile. There seem to be three basic models for doing this.

One approach is for an organization to monetize something it already does well. About half of our work at PlaceMatters consists of fee-for-service projects with communities around the country. We ensure that our research is continuously grounded in on-the-ground work in real communities, we field test new community engagement tools and techniques, and simultaneously generate an important revenue source for our nonprofit.

A second is to monetize a by-product of something the organization does. The Extreme Ice Survey, which documents the impacts of climate change on glaciers around thew world, is able to generate revenue from its remarkable photographs and videos. The images and videos are a by-product of the work itself, but they can provide real financial value in support of the mission.

A third might be to monetize the mission directly. An example: by selling heirloom seeds to farmers and gardeners, Native Seeds/SEARCH directly advances its mission of protection genetic diversity in agricultural plants.

Despite many great examples across the sector (including parts of the sector that are heavily funded through direct services), we suspect that many nonprofits underutilize or leave untapped altogether some revenue streams that could provide more revenue stability and security for their mission-based work.

The main reasons for this, we think, are a combination of not having learned to think entrepreneurially (in a revenue-generation sense) and not having the skills to execute even when those opportunities become apparent. And if that’s really the explanation, it’s good news, since those seem like learnable skills and skills that may be increasingly valued in the social sector as the philanthropic toll of the recession persists.

Hopping the Fence: A Couple of Nonprofit Geeks Jump Into the World of Tech Startups

May 25, 2011 by Ted Fickes

The Bright+3 crew has long been interested in how the nonprofit world can learn from the best practices or organizations in the private and public sectors.

And yes, of course, the private sector has a lot to learn from nonprofits, too, as we’ve argued elsewhere (such as our “Be More Like a Nonprofit” post), but we are a lot more interested in improving the capacity of the social sector to kick ass in its mission-based work.

Couple that with an entrepreneurial itch (to use Jon Stahl’s expression), add a healthy enthusiasm about technology, and throw in a heavy dose of fascination at the entrepreneurial world, and you get our new adventure: Trey & I applied for, were accepted in, and are now two weeks into a summer-long intensive incubator/accelerator for technology startups.

I can’t say that we picked Founder Institute based on a careful review of the options; really we stumbled into the application opportunity and did enough research to know it seemed solid and well-regarded. But it’s turned out to be a really strong fit. It caters to founders that have other jobs (rather than being fully immersive), the focus is more on producing skilled entrepreneurs rather than launching companies (e.g., acceptance into the program is based more on the strength of the applicants than on the strength of their business proposal), and the program takes a smaller cut of equity from new businesses than some other incubators (and creates a shared bonus pool for graduates to share in each other’s success).

Although the program started just a week ago it feels like it’s been a few months . . . intensive, demanding, and challenging. Fun, as well, especially now that we think we are starting to figure out a clear business idea (more on that later). And despite the emphasis on entrepreneurial skills over business-building, we are still expected to do the latter, and we are moving full steam ahead.

In the meantime, one early observation: it is extremely cool to watch some of the extremely skilled, serial entrepreneurs who mentor in the program think out loud when they are evaluating business ideas and when they are crafting their own ideas. On the former, it’s a sharp, incisive, and very quick ability to run every idea though a series of critical questions about the market size, getting to market, the competitiveness of the market, and a host of others. It’s impressive to watch (and it can be brutal to be on the receiving end of an analysis). The latter is even more impressive, seeing the world through a lens that identifies points of friction and pain and constantly asking “what if there was something that . . . ” or “wouldn’t it be cool if . . . ” A lot of those ideas might not, in the end, pass muster, but it’s a very cool way of thinking about the world that produces a constant stream of ideas for solving problems.

Mergers and Acquisitions in the Nonprofit World

May 13, 2011 by Ted Fickes

I don’t know if the pace of nonprofit mergers and acquisitions across the sector is increasing, but I’ve been personally involved in more over the past few years (two) than in the previous fifteen (none). Mergers and acquisitions are still pretty uncommon, I think, and I’m not clear what relationship those trends have to comparable trends in the private sector. The market pressures of the nonprofit sector are notoriously bizarre, and traditional market dynamics like economies of scale and market share just don’t apply in any particularly rational way. For example, because income for many nonprofit comes from philanthropic foundations and from individual donors, revenue often has a tenuous-at-best relationship to the market value of their offering. The value proposition for funders is often divorced from the quality of the service the organization provides, or the efficiency of its work, or the success of its advocacy efforts (although not necessarily divorced from the funders’ perception of those things).

As a result, the market pressures that often lead to mergers and acquisitions in the private sector don’t necessarily play out very consistently in the nonprofit world. But given how hard foundations have been hit by the recession, and given the continuing growth in just sheer numbers of nonprofits (the number of U.S. nonprofit organizations increased by 60% in the decade between 2000 and 2009), we suspect we’ll see more M&A in the coming years.

The first merger I was involved in (as a board member of the nonprofit I ran until 2007) was a solid success. It was really more of an acquisition: we absorbed the strongest programs and the associated program staff but not the other organization’s name or the pieces that didn’t fit well. I think the alignment in mission and organizational culture, as well as the ways in which the programs were complementary, made a big difference. Everyone – the boards and staff – took their time, and everyone on both sides worked pretty hard at building a new sense of camaraderie and shared organizational identity, which also made a big difference.

The second (between Center for Native Ecosystems and Colorado Wild) – a more conventional merger, with a new name and a combined board – is a work-in-progress, but so far everything looks really good. I’m much more of an observer than participant on this one, but they are following a similar playbook: measured and thoughtful, a lot of effort on making the programs and all the systems fit, and a lot of attention on creating a supportive sense of shared organizational culture. It’ll be a while before we get a real verdict, but the indicators are good so far.

But this is anecdotal, and while there is some discussion and a modicum of research (for example, Chronicle of Philanthropy maintains a blog on layoffs and mergers), I think the social sector would do well to invest some energy in learning from our own M&A activities . . . when does it seem to work well, when does it not, what lessons can we draw, and the like. I suspect, as well, that the nonprofit sector could learn a lot from the private sector about thinking strategically about mergers & acquisitions, how to avoid common pitfalls, and about how to make them work.