This presentation summarizes a few principles and tools that can help nonprofit staff and activists get better results from their fundraising, advocacy, and social marketing efforts. The slides also outline a system for social innovation that takes you from a vague desire to attack a social problem, to a concrete and realistic idea that fits your circumstances.

1. INNOVATION IN
ACTIVISM
A SYSTEM FOR DESIGNING BETTER EDUCATION PROGRAMS, ADVOCACY STRATEGIES,
FUNDRAISING EFFORTS, SOCIAL MARKETING CAMPAIGNS, AND MORE

2. THE CHALLENGE
• Philanthropists and activists often struggle to produce sustainable social change.
• “Copy and paste” programs and policies are often impractical.
• Fundraising often takes up tons of time and money.
• Pressing social issues demand quicker change and more social innovation.
• In summary, there are four reasons (at least) why a new system is needed now.

3. THE SOLUTION
• A simple set of tricks and techniques that help social changers do better upfront
planning, design better programs, and generate more funding more reliably is the
solution.
• A framework for analyzing problems, generating ideas, and making decisions.
• The rest of this slideshow summarizes the framework.

4. FIVE PRINCIPALS AND FIVE STEPS
1. Think scientifically
2. Be systematic
3. Focus on marketing
4. Look for leverage
5. Search for opportunities
1. Explore your challenge
2. Study your environment
3. Look for ideas
4. Work on ideas
5. Evaluate and improve

5. A FEW NOTES ON PRINCIPLES
• You probably use all five of them now and then.
• Applying them more explicitly reduces the risk of mistakes and can yield better
results than relying on intuition or experience.
• Scientific thinking is vital because stakeholders usually demand facts and
research.
• Looking for leverage is all about doing more with your resources.
• Always be alert to ways you can combine ideas, collaborate, improve things and
so on.

6. ADVICE FOR FINDING AND USING IDEAS
1. Use a structured process for exploring the challenge/issue/problem you want to
attack.
2. Ask questions about the social environment where you operate, or where you
expect your innovation to be used.
3. Do your research to find ideas you can borrow and adapt.
4. Learn to brainstorm AND how to systematically create new ideas.
5. Consider ways to improve new and existing ideas.

7. APPLICATIONS
• Fundraising – earned income strategies, memberships, premium offers, marketing
tactics
• Advocacy – promotional/PR techniques, ideas to promote, framing/reframing
• Programs – new programs, improvements, combinations and modifications
• Social Marketing – social innovations, frames, advertising tactics
• Operations – streamlining, substituting, partnerships, program management

8. SOME SOCIAL INNOVATION TOOLS
• Lateral Thinking – PMI, provocative operations
• Environmental Scanning – systematically thinking about dimensions and
characteristics
• Systematic Creativity – Morphological analysis
• Exploring a Challenge – Problems versus Symptoms, 5 Why Technique
(Many of the tools and techniques you would use are contained in popular business
books on creativity and innovation. You can also learn more about the creativity
tools at a site called MindTools.)

9. WHO CAME UP WITH THIS?
• Chester Davis is a freelance sociologist, a blogger, a volunteer, and an amateur
science fiction writer. He lives and works in Nashville, TN.
• The Creative Activism Toolkit (2012) describes the system and various “thinking
tools” that go with it in detail.