Question everything.
That’s what I learned from a recent session I attended at the Institute of Fundraising conference here in London yesterday.
The presentation was given by Zoe Macalpine and Lucy Graham who lead the Major Gifts team at Terrence Higgins Trust, the leading HIV prevention and education organization here in the UK.
I know a lot about Terrence Higgins Trust and their fundraising (as I’ve been very fortunate to work with them on another project), but I didn’t know that they had systematically used a process of innovation to dramatically improve their event results.
There actually is a lot of talk about innovation in the nonprofit sector here in the UK and at first I had to admit that I thought it might be a buzz word.
But at Terrence Higgins Trust (THT), they used a structured innovation process to question about the event and they arrived at new solutions. And, they increased revenue from their premier fundraising event from $320,000 to $520,000.
How did they do it?
Innovation was already woven into the culture of THT. The fundraising team had been professionally coached to consider innovation in their work through a structured and intentional process. The organization even had innovation champions in the fundraising team.
There was a willingness to question everything. There were no sacred cows or stones unturned when it came to looking at the event. Everything was on the table for consideration.
They involved their donors. The team brought in donors who were there and some who weren’t to give them unvarnished feedback on the event.
The details were critical. The team looked at all aspects of the event from the pledge forms to the program, from the invites to the follow up. They discovered that a key element to the success of the event was who was sitting next to who and so they used prospect research to sit the right people together.
They looked at the numbers. They realized that it wasn’t all about getting as many people in the room as possible. It was about who was there and how they were inspired to give. The event had fewer people, but raised more money.
The was an element of calculated risk. The team took risk with the changes they made, but it was risk that they were aware of and had considered in their planning. They also carefully tracked outcomes to improve the event the next year.
Events are often treasured by board, staff, and sometimes even the attendees themselves, but many hang around until they become just a wee bit stale.
Do you have one of those events that is just not delivering? Could you use the lens of innovation to improve it?
p.s. The Guardian recently published this article on innovation in the British nonprofit sector. The featured organizations all looked at the barriers to success and then worked out how they could remove those barriers.
