Creating the ripple effect
The ripple effect is a powerful concept: the idea that an organisation can create impact far beyond its own footprint. And there’s plenty of evidence that it works.
Tag Archives: Enterprise
Pleasing all the people
Being a professional means knowing that you can’t please all the people all the time, and experience means that you have those conversations up front.
Engaging with business
One of the themes in my recent conversations with the sector, is the desire to engage better with businesses. There are two opportunities: income and mission, but one is far greater than the other.
CEO Breakfast June 2019
June’s breakfast topic will be Strategic Innovation: for impact, income and social change. My guest speaker will be Richard Hawkes, CEO of the British Asian Trust and former CEO of Scope.
Earning more income
Earned income has been the single biggest driver of the growth in charity income for most of the last twenty years, and it currently represents over 50% of all charity revenue. Growing it is a priority for many charities, but it’s not easy…
A strategy for innovation
Innovation capability is patchy in most organisations, but taking a more strategic approach to innovation can increase margins, accelerate growth, and open up new ways to have a greater positive impact.
A commercial coming of age
Three years ago I felt like something of a lone voice in championing the commercial opportunity for charities. Now, it feels like awareness and interest is definitely gaining momentum.
The charity entrepreneur
Ideas that look great on paper may not look quite so great to your potential customers. So how do you decide when to invest behind new ideas?
Stop looking for markets to enter
One of the interesting aspects of what I’ll call “the charity mindset”, is that we do things on a shoestring and if we can cover our costs, we’re good to go. That mindset leads to some very dangerous assumptions indeed.
Stop waiting for the data
The best way to develop high value commercial income with genuine impact, is to find unmet need and to create new markets around it, but that means a lot of people inside your charity need to change their expectations.
