The New Year is often ushered in with resolutions to better oneself. What about resolutions for your organization?  Drive your fundraising campaigns into high gear for 2010 with these 6 simple tips to encourage innovative thinking.

1. REthink a current fundraising campaign with your ENTIRE organization. Asking everyone to contribute can yield excellent suggestions, even from departments not traditionally involved in the idea process.

2. REmove fear. There are no wrong questions. Allow for open idea sessions on a regular basis.

3. REdesign your workspace to inspire! It can be as simple as a fresh coat of paint or framed pictures on the wall. How about a new mural or some fun lighting?

4. REalign your fundraising strategy to improve efficiency. Analyze which programs raise most money for every dollar spent and invest accordingly. Our MWO Fundraising Optimizer software produces a three-year forecast of fundraising results that is the best combination of your fundraising programs.

5. REtreat, REjuvenate, REfresh. Organize regular outings for your staff, like a bowling event or a movie night.

6. REward hard work. Create team incentives and recognize your staff’s achievements.

“We take an outside-the-box approach to activism, to educating and mobilizing young people,” says Andrew Slack, founder of the Harry Potter Alliance, as he enthusiastically details his organization’s achievements over the phone. “Based off a modern myth, we’re building a worldview in our members. We’re encouraging each other to tap into the magic of our creativity.”

We’re inspired by Andrew’s passion, dedication and ingenuity. Here is an individual who, like many of us, wants to change the world and is harnessing the power of youth and creativity to do just that. His out-of-the-box thinking moved him to start the Harry Potter Alliance, a 100,000-strong network of “Harry Potter fans from everywhere to spread love and fight the Dark Arts in the real world.”

Thus far, the HP Alliance has raised over $15,000 for Darfur and Burma, donated over 14,000 books across the world, and brought attention to numerous issues though their activism using the media and internet.

What can Andrew Slack teach us about our organizations?

• I suspect there are ‘Andrew Slacks’ within your organization, but most of us do not allow them to pursue new and innovative ideas.  Instead, they are stifled and pushed down/away; they are “kept on task” and as a result, nothing really innovative gets done.  Perhaps you should have lunch with the “Andrew Slacks” and give him/her some unprecedented freedom and resources – nothing crazy, just some space to be who they can be.  The results might amaze you.

• Through our work with our clients, we have discovered that fantastic ideas are often hiding in the minds and files drawers of people within the organization.  We just ask the simple question, “What great idea have you thought we should be pursuing and, for whatever reason, we are not?”  Everyone has an answer, and they are really good ideas.  Somehow they have been buried by the day-to-day.  All you have to do is ask for the ideas, make a list, prioritize them and choose the best one to begin transforming your fundraising.  Our MWO Incubator can help with the really big ideas, but you can also turn your “Andrew Slack” loose on one of them.  They can take a concept and turn it into a new fundraising program for your organization!

• Maybe we are limiting the development of new and exciting fundraising programs because we are so concerned about years of experience and proven success.   Andrew Slack was 25 when he started the Harry Potter Alliance – he had no professional experience or proven success.  Nothing new can ever get going if it has to be proven first.  Scientists call it experimentation, in business it’s called new product development, and in fundraising – well, we don’t even have a term for it!    I recommend you take a risk and support a new fundraising program for your organization every year.   Start small, experiment with something new, and perhaps you will discover an idea as exciting, engaging and powerful as the Harry Potter Alliance.

Source: Business Strategy Innovation blog

I saw this comic and loved it.  We all  have a lot in common with these guys.  The boss knows that he wants innovation. So being an efficient manager, he picks his best man and delegates the assignment.  And the good lieutenant responds to his boss just like he has been taught:  “Yes sir, just tell me what you want.”

Both are the products of their organizational cultures, just like the rest of us.

But our rigid business cultures have not taught us to give our best employee an assignment with instructions like, “Do whatever you want to do.  Break the rules, break the boundaries, spend money and see what you can do for us that might take this organization to the moon.  And if your idea fails, I’ll buy you and your whole team dinner.  And if it succeeds, I’ll share 10 percent of the revenue with you all.”

Or how many of us have been taught to respond to his or her boss by saying, “I don’t want any restrictions.  I’m innovative and creative and really talented.  Give me free rein for the next two years and I’ll come back to you with an idea that will blow your socks off.  And if I don’t succeed, I’ll return my salary.  And if I am successful, you give me 10 percent of the revenue we generate.  Want to play?”

We don’t talk like this because we’ve been taught to keep things under control, to operate within parameters, and to do what we are told.  That certainly is not a recipe for innovation or growth. We cannot rely on someone else to come up with all the good ideas while we stay in our protective bubble of guidelines and protocols.  As employees at Not-for-profits, we’re trying to solve some of the planet’s most complex, challenging and important problems. Perhaps we need to start by creating the right environment within our organizations to cultivate ideas that will change the world.