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Fundrasing Innovation

To be innovative, you need to create an environment that supports innovation!

Charities, who want their fundraisers to generate new ideas to give them the competitor advantage, must make sure their company fully support the ideas process. For example giving an employee 10% of their allocated time of their working week to experiment and research new ideas creates an innovative environment.

Cultivate the appropriate working environment

For innovation to truly thrive fundraisers must begin to work in an integrated way. Fundraisers who work cross departmentally, sharing ideas ‘one team one goal’ will enable ideas and innovations to emerge naturally.

Reward and recognition
Creativity and investment should be recognised, nurtured and rewarded. Without it charities can begin to stagnate or worse still lag behind. By fostering a creative free thinking fundraising environment which is open to new initiatives and one which links innovation directly to a reward system will ensure individuals and teams feel their contributions is both valued and rewarded.

Turning ideas into reality
Bringing people together who would not normally meet is a great way to foster connections that can lead to innovation. Monthly informal social activities or regular discussion groups and brainstorming sessions can encourage ideas and networking. Along with this a clear process for capturing ideas and turning them into practical solutions is vital.

Don't be scared to fail
The biggest barrier to innovation is fear of failure. To be innovative you need to lose the fear and try things that you aren’t sure will work. Remember to nurture individual or teams whose ideas that don’t go well as this will ensure they continue to try new things. Allow employees to question existing structures and remember if their idea works it could transform your charity. Don’t stand still there is always something to keep striving for– Keep Innovating!

Celebrate success
Celebrate you charities innovation successes and the people behind them. By sharing successes and milestones it will create a culture of creativity .You can do this in a number of ways including company newsletters, emails, employee awards ceremonies and regular informal activities for celebrating and sharing.

If there is one company that knows what it means to dare to be different it's Google. The Festival of Fundraising will hear from David Black, Director, Google UK about the tools and techniques to imbed a culture of innovation into your charity.

The festival takes place on the Wednesday 27th November. To find out more and book your ticket visit: http://www.institute-of-fundraising.org.uk/innovate/