With just five words funders can annoy most of the charitable sector:
“We want to fund something innovative.”
Not ‘something good’. Not ‘something proven’. Not ‘something tested’. Not ‘something that almost works and just needs another go’.
No, we want something untried, something untested, something so unusual that no-one has ever tried it before.
Let me be clear. I’m not against innovation. I’m in favour of the wheel, sliced bread, electricity, vaccines. Even the internet has its upsides. 🙂
But a normal investor – in the normal economy – knows that the majority of gains come from delivering something that already exists just a little bit better. Most companies don’t invent a wheel, they help it turn a bit faster.
And yet in the charity space, funders can become overly focused on innovation.
I have founded three social enterprises in my life. Not one of them was truly innovative. We took ideas that were proven and just sought to put them together better, deliver them better, train people better.
Innovation has its place. It is essential when all of the existing great ideas have reached all possible customers. When your product becomes a universal commodity, you have to innovate.
Do we really think this describes the social sector? Is great teaching now a commodity that all children experience? What about great youthwork? Or great social care?
Of course some new ideas are welcome. But what we really need is to find the existing great practice and to spread it … everywhere.
And so to Wile E. Coyote
As a kid, I used to love watching a cartoon called The Roadrunner. In every episode, this tall super-fast bird would sprint around making his joyful ‘meep-meep’ noise. Meanwhile his nemesis – Wile E. Coyote – was busy designing a new, complex and highly innovative way to catch him.
In each episode, Wile E. Coyote would build a new contraption – unlike anything ever used before – to trap the Roadrunner. Like MacGyver’s long-lost cousin, the Coyote would plan to use pullies, mirrors, levers, the sun’s rays and a rock to flatten the Roadrunner. But, at the last moment, something would go wrong. An unexpected cloud would block the sun’s rays and the rock would miss the roadrunner by millimetres.
And yet, when the next episode started, the Coyote would junk the idea that had almost worked. He would start again from scratch with a totally new contraption. Even as a kid I remember thinking: why not just try that old plan again and make it a bit better?
There is a lesson here for all of us giving out funding.
Completely agree Jon. Some idealised concept of ‘innovation’ is too often an ego-related idol that is promoted.
Everyone and everything stands on the shoulders of what has come before. There is nothing new under the sun.
Most things just need refreshing, tweaking, adapting, re-formatting in order to meet a need that has slightly changed. Far better if funder asked questions which demand real self-reflection and organisational humility rather than enslave them to ham up their innovation. How about:
‘Name 3 things you are committed to doing differently as a result of what you have learnt?’
‘How does this proposal address weaknesses in what you have done before?’