Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Shag Carpet

I'm sitting in our little 10x10 booth at the Association of Fundraising Professionals conference staring at the shag rug across from me...yes, shag.

Those who grew up in the 70's or are children of parents who wore bell bottoms are familiar with the varigated green or orange versions. This has an interesting modern kind of varigation that has shiny stuff on it... But my point....

There is nothing new under the sun... Now that was written more than 2000 years ago!

The theme of this year's AFP is innovation - Navion, a major gift consulting firm, has become "Inspire." The keynote suggested that we take time to reignite the dream.

The cynic in me chalks this all up to latent hippies sporting SUV's (because, even though they are not environmental they are practical), using i-pods (Bob Dylan revived) and wondering how they ended up with a remote contol garage door. The idea of play is not new... But play, imagination and innovation are in the power point of each motivational speaker.

The other word was original....

Shag is not original. But shiny varigated shag is.

A couple of years ago we were able to have an original "aha" with The Leprosy Mission. It started with a problem: how do we encourage more engagement with the much ignored middle donor? We looked at the facts - most middle donors gave onc a year and, while they gave $4000 plus annually, their overall engagement didn't change. We started by daring to decrease their annual mail and increase the length of the letter and the offer.

Warning signs going off?

You're right. It defied conventional wisdom. But it worked... Middle donors began engaging in conversation, gave more often and large amounts.

Why did it work?

TLMC was willing to check the facts, interpret the patterns and take the risk.

I imagine if we looked a little deeper we could all tell the story of innovation.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Innovation requires change. I don't know the stats but a huge number of us are change-averse. I'm not convinced that large companies are neither less innovative nor more secure in the face of innovation. I see innovation as a change in culture...be it culture or and organization or a department within one.

A couple of months ago I was doing a little reading on change and recommed "The Fifth Disciple" by Peter Senge and "Managing the Dynamics of Change" by Jerald Jellison. I like Jellison's refernce to the J-curve of change and how difficult it is to take that first step.

Another random thought - somewhere I read a caution to innovate for today, not for tomorrow. Something I have seen to be very true.

Just some ramblings...thanks Gayle.
Chris.

Gayle said...

I agree... innovation is about change in many times change is more difficult when there is more at stake. Or so we think.
Like you observed, Chris, many small organizations are as tentative about change as large organizations are. It really isn't dependent on size -- but one many other factors: leadership; board imagination; risk ratios; imagination.

navaneedh said...

just linked this article on my facebook account. it’s a very interesting article for all.



Shag Carpet