As the year begins, most Agitator readers have made some plans for new approaches, new tactics, to try in the coming year … otherwise more grandly known as ‘innovations’.

Seriously, I hope ‘innovation’ means more to fundraisers than testing new envelope teasers and email subject lines.

Innovation is serious stuff, and often impeded by poor individual work styles (ranging from simple lethargy to fear-induced paralysis to inadequate professional exposure to new ideas to succumbing to the tyranny of deadlines) and further choked by resistant organisational cultures (the article cited below warns of ‘virulent antibodies’ … I love that metaphor).

Hopefully none of the above applies to you!

If you really want to infuse innovation into your personal work style and your nonprofit’s culture, you might benefit from reading this McKinsey article on The Eight Essentials of Innovation … one of their ‘top ten’ articles of 2015.

This chart summaries their advice …

Two questions come to mind as I read the article.

Is any of this ‘theory’ relevant if you and your team aren’t driven to improve in the first place? Doesn’t it all fall apart at #1 — Aspire? How far will you reach in 2016, how determined are you about it, and, as the article points out, can you measure the value of your aspiration?

And second, how competitive are you? I realize that a competitive nature is only one possible motivator for setting high aspirations. Maybe you’re ‘just’ passionate about serving your donors, clients, those who will benefit from your organization’s programs better, and don’t really care much about how well other nonprofits in your space are getting the job done.

I certainly respect that passion. But that said, I never hired anyone who didn’t evidence a competitive urge to do better than the other guys in our space. That’s real fuel for innovation.

The article’s bit dense, and targeted at corporate folks, but I don’t see anything here that doesn’t apply to nonprofits serious about fundraising innovation — measurable aspirations, making choices, developing actionable insights, studying other high performers, and more.

Plenty of food for thought. Check it out.

Tom