The biggest, best-funded non profits have an obligation to be leaders in innovation, but sometimes they hesitate.
One reason: "We're doing important work. Our funders count on us to be reasonable and cautious and proven, because the work we're doing is too important to risk failure."
One alternative: "We're doing important work. Our funders count on us to be daring and bold and brave, because the work we're doing is too important to play it safe."
The thing about most cause/welfare non-profits is that they haven't figured out how to solve the problem they're working on (yet). Yes, they are often offer effective aid, or a palliative. But no, too many don't have a method for getting at the root cause of the problem and creating permanent change. That's because it's hard (incredibly hard) to solve these problems.
The magic of their status is that no one is expecting a check back, or a quarterly dividend. They're expecting a new, insightful method that will solve the problem once and for all.
Go fail. And then fail again. Non-profit failure is too rare, which means that non-profit innovation is too rare as well. Innovators understand that their job is to fail, repeatedly, until they don't.
留言列表