In my latest podcast I chatted with Kevin Waudby, Founder of Good Innovation the agency that helps organisations to solve the problems that matter. One of their values is ‘make shit happen’, which I like a lot.
Kevin has worked across all income streams, both agency and charity side, so has a lot of knowledge to share. He also happens to be a lovely guy and fellow northerner.
Key learning that I took from the chat is:
1. The barriers to innovation are a leadership challenge
No budget? No time? No structure? These are all challenges that the leadership needs to address. Free up the time and budget from elsewhere – yes, it means difficult conversations, but something has to give to enable new approaches and growth; find that thing. Importantly, innovation is fun – especially the buzz that you get from generating a new idea that you think could be a game-changer – but it’s no good without strategic focus and a framework to help you get from pie-in-the-sky idea to a fully costed business case. Your leadership should provide this vision, strategic clarity and boundaries to work within.
2. Small data is the way forward!
As a sector, we’re good at acquiring and manipulating the big data sets that help inform our fundraising planning; think recency, frequency, value, for example. But we aren’t so good at understanding why people give. And it’s the why that Kevin is most interested in. As he says, people don’t get up in the morning thinking that they must give to charity; but they might wake up worrying about their child’s emotional resilience…and these are the kinds of challenges that Good Innovation is helping organisations to address, through gaining the ‘small data’ and using it to engage new audiences and generate income. See Mindful Monsters. This is a bit of an eye-opener, tbh. Having fundraising theory grounded in proximity and affinity to a cause seemed to be the way forward for such a long time, so it’s really interesting to see new approaches like this shaking things up.
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I hope that you enjoy listening.
Beth Crackles 