Where do good
fundraising ideas come
from? !
Lucy Gower !

today
• What is an idea
• How to have good ideas
• Have a go at idea generation
techniques
• OK ideas vs good ideas
• How to select the best ones
• Do something different

“Part
of
what
made
the
Macintosh
great
was
that
the
people
working
on
it
were
musicians,
and
poets,
and
ar9sts,
and
zoologists,
and
historians
who
also
happened
to
be
the
best
computer
scien9sts
in
the
world.”
Steve
Jobs

How are you setting yourself
up to have good ideas?
What do you already do?
How are you getting out from behind
your desk and making connections?
How can you adapt your environment
for better idea generation?

“ A new idea is delicate. It can be
killed by a sneer or a yawn; it can
be stabbed to death by a joke, or
worried to death by a frown on the
right person’s brow”
Charles Brower

"If you always do what you've
always done, you'll always get
what you've always got."
Henry Ford
©
lucyinnova,on

“Insanity: doing the same thing
over and over again and
expecting different results.”
Albert Einstein

“Life moves pretty fast. If you
don't stop and look around once
in a while, you could miss it.”
Ferris Bueller

It’s more risky to be like everyone
else

Innovation =
Problem x Solution x Execution

Innovation
“What
you
need
to
do
differently
to
get
to
where
you
said
you
would
go”

Incremental

“If I had one hour to save the world,
I would spend the first 55 minutes
analysing the problem and then
5 minutes on the solutions”
Einstein

“If I had asked people what they wanted
they would have asked for a better
horse.”
Henry Ford

Market trends

Haiti fundraising - farmville

How to have good ideas !
Ask ‘What if?’

Your challenge
You are marketers of mineral water.
Find ways to sell more

Using What if? to get out of your
existing mindset
Step 1. Choose an unwritten rule of
toothpaste
Step 2. Decide your audience
Step 3. How will you sell more to them?

How to have good ideas
Where else in the world?

Choosing the best ideas
©
lucyinnova,on

Bad ideas……

“Innovation is saying no
to 1,000 things”
Steve Jobs

A typical process…..
OPPORTUNITY
FOCUS
INSIGHTS
IDEAS
&
PILOT
LAUNCH
PROTOTYPE

Criteria…….
• Addresses
a
strategic
challenge
• Based
on
insight
• Income
poten9al
• Brand
fit
• Time
to
market
• Poten9al
to
scale
• Ease
&
simplicity
• Gut
feeling

Risk
“I have not failed.
I've just found 10,000 ways that won't
work.”
Thomas Edison
©
lucyinnova,on

"I think there is a world market for
maybe five computers.” Thomas
Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943
What are you going to do Mr Edison
- put one in every town in the
country?! Congress to Edison
regarding the telephone

How
to
have
good
fundraising
ideas
• Generate ideas around a strategic need
• Get good insight
• Deliberately make connections
• Take time to relax
• Aim for lots and lots of ideas
• Use creative thinking techniques
• Use criteria to select the best ideas
• Be brave
• Do something

You are the the pioneers
You are idea Latest
innovations in
• You
are
the
latest
fundraising
innova,ons
–
image
–
pioneers
–
trailblazers
Fundraising
©
lucyinnova,on

Do something
• On your postcard write at least one new
thing that you are going to try
• Tell the person next to you
• Put your name, address and email on the
postcard
• Give the postcard to Lucy
• She will send and email it back to you to
remind you

Find out more
www.sofii.org
Where good ideas
come from
Steven Johnson
Switch and Made to Stick
Chip and Dan Heath
Sticky Wisdom
?What if! The Innovation Company
Business beyond the Box
John O’Keefe
Linchpin and Purple Cow
Seth Godin
Enchantment
Guy Kawasaki
The Art of Woo
G Richard Shell and Mario Moussa
Making ideas Happen
Scott Berkun
Good to Great
Jim Collins

Best
fundraising
blogs
• The
Agitator
theagitator.net
• 101
fundraising
101fundraising.org
• Mark
Phillips
queerideas.co.uk
• Fundraising
Detec9ve
fundraisingdetec9ve.com
• Beth’s
blog
bethkanter.org
• Future
Fundraising
Now
futurefundraisingnow.com
• Jonathan
Grapsas
flatearthdirect.com/blog
• The
Penguin
Blog
boVomlineideas.wordpress.com
• Katya’s
blog
nonprofitmarke9ngblog.com
• Seth’s
blog
sethgodin.typepad.com

Contact
lucy@lucyinnovation.co.uk
@lucyinnovation