The Creative Activist

No activist or nonprofit executive needs to be reminded that times are tough. The reactions to George Floyd's death and the economic meltdown caused by COVID-19 have raised questions and created challenges. And those things are in addition to the other big and small social issues that haven't gone away.  If your organization needs to do more with less or get faster results, there are a bunch of tools out there that can help. I think that's generally true at least. This series on Tools for Tough Times is my effort to offer some useful advice based on my experience and research. (See my revised bio at the bottom of this post.) This post is about asking the right questions. Future posts will explain some tools, techniques, and strategies that you may have read about in books like Thinkertoys, Serious Creativity, and Why Didn't I Think of That.  Questions: Whether you want to raise more money over the summer or really make progress on racial discrimination or animal rights,...

If you want to promote social change, then you have to speak to the needs of your audience, speaking to the concerns of Trump supporters has to be part of that. Why? Marketing 101: Sell people something they say they need. You can create a need for universal basic income, a $15/hr minimum wage, or protection for LGBT workers. But, if your audience isn't interested in hearing about that, there's a huge problem. If you have a marketing team and $2 million annual communication budget, then maybe there's not much of a problem. The following comments seem to apply mainly to political nonprofits, those that advocate for liberal or progressive policies. That would be correct. However, I think a wide range of issues can be framed in terms that speak to fiscally or socially conservative voters. This Topic Dues Not Apply to My Organization: I bet it does. Some nonprofits are about as nonpolitical as they can be, historic preservation organizations for example. Even if you would...

Everyone knows now that Donald Trump is taking his (mostly) conservative, business-friendly agenda to Washington, DC. While there, he will at least be able to start working with a House and Senate controlled by Republicans. I'm not taking a public position on whether this is good news or bad news, but I want to say there are ways for progressive activists to make things happen. Social Marketing Trumps Politics: The whole point of social marketing is to get people to make a change that would truly benefit them. Many challenges that Trump appears unlikely to address, or indeed to make worse, can be tackled by direct appeals to individuals. What do I mean exactly? Consider climate change. Conservatives are never going to support robust climate change policies that interfere with business or with their lifestyles. Many moderates would refuse to play along. Fair enough. Forget sweeping legislation. Redouble efforts to "sell" behavior changes that can benefit the climat...

This fundraising post is about creative thinking, as we usually think of it. Last time I wrote about a systematic way to explore different elements of fundraising in a search for new ideas. This post is about an intuitive technique for creating ideas by using random concepts to spark new thinking about fundraising. New ideas are often just concepts taken from another field and adapted to fit. The concept of a library has been extended to garden tools. You can lease a washer and drier in Europe, now or pretty soon. With those two examples in mind, take a few minutes to examine this list of concepts: Coupon Vending machine Clearance sale Holiday sale Product recommendations (People who bought X also enjoyed Y) Layaway Buy One Get One (free, half off, et cetera) Lease Deposits Refer-a-friend Credit Renting Sharing (bikes, cars) Fractional ownership Think about a specific fundraising challenge your organization is facing and take another look at the list. Try working w...

Big Data - the name probably makes you think of huge databases being sifted through by statistics nerds, economists and financial analysts. That's actually a fair image, sort of. The same type of analysis that helps economists and others make sound financial decisions and understand social trends can be of use to activists and nonprofit staff. Redefining What 'Big Data" Means: You initially think of databases that contain millions or billions of records, like Census files. At least one observer of big data wants you to think in terms of importance as well as size. Look at it like this: Mining a huge database of people who support causes like yours can yield some fundraising and marketing insights. Or, you can determine up-front what data is critically important for your organization or cause. Your cause or organization probably has something that's missing, some data that would significantly improve your advocacy, fundraising or social marketing efforts. Three ...

Activism on both the right and the left faces three problems, problems that lead to a huge wasting of energy and money on efforts and little or no return. Individual activists and activists in organizations tend to regularly fall prey to people marketing propaganda and conspiracies, false conclusions about the causes of problems, the tendency to look for problems that fit a solution, and the tendency to favor stunts over useful activities. Think of this article as an introduction to some forces that lead activists astray. I've observed these problems over and over in thousands of articles, social media posts, ad campaigns, editorials, and et cetera.  So, take that as you wish.  Availability Entrepreneurs There is a big problem with individuals and organizations promoting awareness of a problem (why the problem and not a viable solution?) or alleged problem to an audience who wants to consume that sort of information. Want to know about “immigrant problems” or misogy...

This post contains yet another tool for creative thinking about fundraising. I hope you’ve read my most recent posts on that same topic. While this post will stand on its own, the other posts will just add arrows to your quiver. I’ve been writing about tricks I picked up in a book called Thinkertoys: A Handbook of Business Creativity for the 90s by Michael Michalko. This is another post in the same series. Asking questions about a fundraising challenge can lead to new ways to think about fundraising. Let’s assume for the sake of discussion we’ll assume the challenge relates to fundraising. I’ll offer an example as I explain the steps: 1. Specify your challenge – “In what ways might we raise the operating funds we need?” (You don’t have to be quite that precise, but that question is one I know comes up in the nonprofit world, so there it is.) 2. List “what if” scenarios – Usually these scenarios are phrased as questions but that’s not truly necessary. Here are some scenarios to...