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.
Tag Archives: Value
Distinguishing innovation
Within the media stories about Jamie Oliver’s restaurant chain going into administration, are hidden lessons for many charities.
A question of innovation
In any organisation there will be lots of people who have ideas as to how things could be improved, but how do you decide which ones to back?
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.
New thinking for the New Year
2018 could be a challenging year for charities that provide services. But your assets, insights and expertise can be extremely valuable when offered to the right people, and there are often many routes to finding and helping your beneficiaries.
Lessons from RNIB
Making good money from providing commercial services isn’t easy for anyone, but it sounds like the folks at RNIB have made some fairly basic errors.
The IP opportunity
Your organisation’s knowledge is probably the biggest lever you have for increasing income and impact, but all too often it’s an invisible and untapped asset, because most of us are like Canada…
Putting a price on quality
Forget the old maxim “you can’t put a price on quality”. You can. In a commissioning environment that’s under increasing pressure to cut costs, it’s more important than ever that you do, and you’ll need three ingredients to do it…
Stop giving customers what they want
There’s a huge amount of pressure in the sector right now to be more competitive, more customer focused, and more compliant to a funder’s processes, specifications and conditions. And there’s a real danger that you start to forget that you are the experts in your field…
Sales is not a dirty word
Sharron McIndoe, Head of Training and Consultancy at the National Autistic Society, talks to Martyn Drake about how her team developed their ethical approach to “sales”, and how that change […]
