Creating a social innovation to impact the social problems and opportunities our society faces is incredibly rewarding. Most (but not all) organizations working to address the social challenges are stuck in a rut. They are running their programs the same way they've always done them. In today's world, getting caught in the rut will dome any organization – including charities.
This week, we discuss the challenges, opportunities and considerations to radically improve the innovations being created and applied to social/charity organizations.
Social innovation topics covered include:
- The role of charities to have social impact
- Social innovation: Innovative solutions to a social problem
- Social entrepreneurship: A start-up that has a social objective as its priority
- Social enterprise: A large organization that has as part of its mission to address a social objective
- Ways to help charities including fundraising and supporter engagement
- Examples of highly creative charities:
- Community Voice Mail (Homelessness)
- Kira Microfinance
- List of 10 innovative charities
- Having a social mission as part of your business is good business
- Normal companies have an obligation to put charge holders above any social mission
- B Corp and Benefit corporations allow you to put the social mission on equal footing of shareholders
- Investors who are supported of social objectives are referred to as impact investors
- You don't need to have large amount of money. You can have social impact by using SRI (socially responsible investing)
- 4 tips for charity innovation
- Trusted Recommendations: We've become accomsted to checking Yelp for “trusted recommendations”. How could your charity secure trusted recomendations from entities beyond the ones most charities secure.
- Customers For Life: In the business world, its more cost effective to keep a customer than get a new one. Same applies to charities. Do you think about your supporters as “customers”? What best practices could you borrow from the business world?
- Relevant and Personalized Content: Content marketing is one of the key ways to secure a deeper relationship with your customers – as long as you recognize that a “one size fits all” model will not work. The same for your supporters.
- Trust: We've all seen the headlines when business and charity leaders go astray and the organization looses its trust with its supporters. What can you do to increase trust? What do you have in place to ensure you don't squander the trust you've earned?
Show Links
- Global Impact Investing Network
- Socially Responsible Investing
- B Corp
- Benefit corporations
- 10 Innovative Charities
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