Skip to main content

Where do nonprofits need some creative thinking?

I'll skip the how and why of brainstorming and lateral thinking because I've posted my other entries on those subjects. You are creative, or at least you have the potential to be creative. So, where do you apply that creativity?

The right places to apply creativity vary from time to time and organization to organizations. Still, there are some common elements.

1. Fundraising - How can we raise more money? How can we afford to launch this nonprofit? To turn those questions on their head: How do you do more with the resources that you have?

2. Goals and objectives - What goals and objectives should you pursue? Some dedicated thinking time might lead to the conclusion that your goals and objectives need to be changed.

3. Strategy - Are you solving a social problem or simply dealing with the symptoms? Does that focus need to be changed? Would brainstorming lead you to a strategy for attacking the problem? If dealing with symptoms is more realistic, how can you produce the most impact with the available resources?

An Example:

I want to start a nonprofit that will buy up decaying old buildings and rehab them, or recycle them, to provide low-cost housing. How can I raise money for that? Suppose my partner and I can scrape together $60,000 in cash and credit. What is best way to use that money? What are the objective of this building program? Will it focus on general housing needs, on the elderly, on welfare recipients?
At least you could argue that the plan addresses a problem - lack of affordable housing in DC.

To stretch your thinking, try to name one or two problems this shortage of housing is a symptom of. How could the problem(s) be tackled? Assume you are starting off with $60,000 and whatever connections you have in real life.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

9 Ways Cognitive Bias Undermines Social Change Efforts

This is going to be the first of many posts on how cognitive bias might undermine social change efforts. Yeah, I know. I will do my best to keep this concrete and interesting. A number of quirks in how our brains work might lead to mistaken judgments in many areas relevant to social change: problem analysis, strategy, program design, and advocacy. Maybe fundraising. Taking effective action on a certain problem is what activists want to do, so we'll come back to fundraising later. 1.Confirmation bias may cause us to look for reasons why a certain strategy or tactic is the right one. Supportive evidence gets woven into the narrative, lending support to the need for more education for women or more gun control or whatever the topic might be. Negative information gets tossed out. 2. Bandwagon effect -This may be a real problem when the resources devoted to addressing an issue get all of proportion to the seriousness of an issue. Instead, bandwagon jumping siphons away money and v...
Post a Comment
Read more

Using SWOT Analysis to Rev Up Your Fundraising

Strategic planning, including SWOT analysis, is for small nonprofits, giant philanthropic foundations, and every other nonprofit. Every nonprofit that seeks financial support of any kind needs a strategy.  The point is to make a plan and work the plan. Business gurus have shared a bunch of strategic planning tools, some generic and some made for a specific purpose. This post is about looking at your Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats - SWOT.  Knowing about your organization's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats is step one in planning your fundraising efforts.  SWOT - A Quick Review This is not the best place to run through SWOT analysis, but an overview will make it obvious why we need to do it. First, however, you should write down your fundraising goal. Then, you can do some analysis. Here are the steps: Strengths - What about your financial resources? What about your reputation and your connections? How big is your audience on social medi...
Post a Comment
Read more

Fundraising Ideas

Raising money is a perennial challenge for nonprofits. The Great Recession has made things tougher for some and nearly impossible for others. Your nonprofit may be working hard to deal with fundraising challenges. Traditional thinking about fundraising might lead to thinking like this - “We need to raise $600,000 more money third year. What do we need to do to make this happen?” A discussion of grant writers, fundraising consultants and mailing lists follows. There is nothing wrong with this approach. At least some of that discussion needs to happen. But, new thinking might also be needed. Lateral thinking may help you get better results. Lateral thinking is (from Wikipedia) “solving problems through an indirect and creative approach.” The point of lateral thinking is to move “sideways” to new ideas and different ways of thinking. The point of this little essay is to point out another way of approaching the subject of fundraising. Lateral thinking itself suggests a broader approach to ...
Post a Comment
Read more