INNOVATION AND PHILANTHROPY · team does. Nicholas Offord. President [email protected]....

Perspectives on Canadian Philanthropy

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I NNOVAT IONAND

PH I L AN THROPYInside:

Q&A with Don Tapscott, author of Macrowikinomics

Plus “Creative Placemaking”– The Story of Artscape

ISSUE SEVEN AUTUMN 2012

Offord Group

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There is an impulse I think most of us have from time to time, after we’ve read the word “innovation” for the four hundredth time in an article or column. It is the impulse to simply shutdown, to refuse to parse the word; isn’t it just another fad-like business buzzword, like “synergy” or “mindshare” or “co-opetition”?

But truthfully, innovation isn’t just a business word or even a business concept. First and foremost, innovation is an idea. It’s tempting to suggest that the worth or merit of an innova-tion is relative to its ability to produce tangible results. But this might hinder us from thinking about innovation not just as an idea, but as a way of thinking: openness to the new, a creative mind, a willingness to take a chance.

Innovation cannot mean just another new gadget, or the latest updated version of your software, or a change to your logo. Innovation isn’t just following the latest trend. Part of what it means to think innovatively must surely be the ability to look at these trends and ask: Where do they come from? What do they mean for me? What is their real value? How can this be done better?

The View From Here

Note From the Editor

Volume 7 Highlights

In this issue, we’ve collected the stories and insights of some of the leading innovators in the field of philanthropy: Michael Decter, for-mer Chair of the Canadian Institute for Health Information and the Council of Canada; Angela Chapman, Director of Advancement, National University of Singapore, who has managed advancement operations in Asia, Australia, and Canada; David Hughes, President of Pathways Canada, recently featured in WISE’s publication Innovation in Education: Lessons from Pioneers around the World; Tim Jones, President of Artscape, whose unique program has married the arts with important community development programs; and Don Tapscott, internationally renowned author of Macrowikinomics.

Take a look – their experiences and thoughts represent some of the brightest in the field. I hope you find them as illuminating as our team does.

Nicholas Offord President [email protected]

PERSPECTIVES ON CANADIAN

PHILANTHROPY is a publication for Canadian CEOs, volunteers, and professional leaders in the philanthropic sector. Our goal is to provide a qualitative and quan-titative review of the sector that will help to inform decisions and strategies for practitioners.

EDITOR

Robin Fowler, CFRE

PROJECT MANAGER: Sara Di Girolamo

CONTRIBUTORS

Mark Blumberg, Michael Decter, Robin Fowler, Phillip Haid, Alison Holt, David Hughes, Tim Jones, Alexander Offord, Nicholas Offord, Don Tapscott

DESIGN

Christian Hanson

Created by Offord Group

Copyright 2012 • All rights reserved

Printed on recycled paper

For more info, please visit theoffordgroup.com

03 What We Mean When We Talk About Innovation

06 Creative Placemaking – The Story of Artscape

10 Life on a Connected Planet: Q&A with Don Tapscott

13 Going Beyond Ratings to Find Innovation

17 Top Picks & Topics

One of the respondents to our recent survey of Canadian fundraising professionals noted the following: “To stand still means to fall behind. We are in a competitive environment, with new players, a challenging investment climate, a somewhat disaffected public, challenging regulatory environments and increasing demands on services.” With these challenges in mind, we have focused this issue on innovation, a topic that has been cropping up often in our work. It is likely that you too have wondered about innovation – What does it really mean? How can your organization be innovative? To what end? Who is already there? We have tried to answer these questions and provide some tangible ideas and inspiration to get you started on the path.

As a country with one of the largest charitable and non-profit sectors, Canada is perhaps one of the best-positioned to become a global innovator in supporting the sector’s influence on society, both here and around the world.

Although some might argue nothing is innovative – that everything has a life cycle and then is simply recycled again in a different form – we have found some interesting examples of innovation in action in Canadian charities that we hope will inspire you.

Keep in touch.

Robin Fowler, CFRESenior [email protected]


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Innovate. Verb. As defined by the Canadian Oxford Dictionary:

1.Intr. Bring in new methods, ideas, etc.

2.Intr. Make changes.

3.Tr. Introduce (a product) for the first time, esp. to the market.

The word innovate first appeared in English sometime during the 1540’s. It received a more interesting and nuanced alternate definition – “make changes in something established” – in the 1590’s. Today, the word’s uses are diffuse, and often very abstract; The New Yorker’s “Innovator’s Issue” of this past May included pieces on such innovative phenomena as geoengineering and photosynthetic clean energy. The truth is, however, that the fixation on the new is problematic. Nothing is ever completely new – nothing emerges in a vacuum (notwithstanding the particular innovations of the Large Hadron Collider). Likewise, we may well ask what constitutes change in a meaningful sense.

Often, innovation comes from individuals or organizations who are simply able to see what others don’t, who bypass the default-setting that might be the consequence of year after year of tackling the same issues. Pathways to Education Canada and Artscape

are good examples of this – in both cases, they managed to succeed where others failed because they were able to change their perspective. In Pathways’ case, instead of looking at the problems affecting a low-income neighbourhood, they began to focus on its assets. Artscape’s enormous success has been a result of their unique emphasis on the arts as a driver of community development, not a product of it. For Don Tapscott, collaboration on an international scale is the key to future success.

Many people use the words “creativity” and “innovation” interchangeably – some would argue they are very different in that creativity is more about coming up with new ideas, while innovation is really about bringing ideas to life. Defining innovation and figuring out how to activate it in your own organization are important steps in the process to making it happen.

What We Mean When We Talk About Innovation by Alexander Offord

Fundraisers Reflect – Part 1 The Offord Group Survey* How do you define innovation?

* The Offord Group Survey reflects the findings of a recent poll of top professionals in the Canadian philanthropic sector ( July/August 2012 )

“We don’t try to define it, we do it.”

“The ability to respond in a timely and effective manner to community issues – often times this means being proactive rather than reactive.”

“Stretching the boundaries, taking risks for greater reward. Creative thinking, partnering and expanding viewpoints to meet goals.”

PROACTIVE

RISK

BEN

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MA

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MAR

KET

PLAC

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IMPROVED

CHANGE

IDEAS

NEW

DIFFE

RENT

IMPA

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CREATIVIT

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CHANCE

COLLABORATE

THINKIN

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ASKING THE RIGHT QUESTIONS PATHWAYS TO EDUCATION CANADA

by David Hughes

Offord Group

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“Creativity is thinking up new things. Innovation is doing new things.”

– American economist Theodore Levitt (1925-2006)

“Mindless habitual behavior is the enemy of innovation.”

– Change management expert Rosabeth Moss Kanter

Quotes of Note:

I like to say that Pathways to Education started with two words: “Why bother?” In the late 1990’s, Toronto’s Regent Park neighbourhood was deteriorating. The oldest and largest social housing project in the city, Regent Park had extremely high rates of poverty, unemploy- ment, and crime. Its culture was diverse, comprising mostly immigrants and visible minorities. It was, and still is, a very young place: 41% of its population is under the age of 18, and by September of 2001, more than half of these kids were dropping out of high school.

The traditional models weren’t working. Government, both local and otherwise, was reluctant to intervene. It seemed that for many, Regent Park was a lost cause, another casualty to the realities of inner-city life. The men and women at the Regent Park Community Health Centre (RPCHC) refused to accept this. They were met with stark responses: “Why bother? Why bother helping these kids who probably won’t amount to anything anyway?” Even worse was when kids themselves started to accept this: “Why bother? Why bother going to school when I probably won’t graduate anyway – and even if I do, I can’t afford college.” The RPCHC could not permit these attitudes to endure. Equipped with limited resources but a deep understanding of Regent Park’s culture, as well as tenacity and a healthy frustration with attitudes to existing models of urban development, they began to develop a unique solution, one that evolved out of the day-to-day realities in the project.

Innovation is...Distinguishing yourself in a crowded and competitive sector

Pathways to Education Canada students, 2011

This kind of innovation often starts with the simplest of ideas. The RPCHC started to look for things that no one else was willing to see: instead of asking “What is wrong with Regent Park?” they asked “What is right with Regent Park? What are the assets of the community, and how can we leverage them to benefit everyone?” They listened. They met with members of the community and heard their concerns, their hopes, their difficulties. Instead of applying the same cookie-cutter approach that other organi-zations had been using – to limited or no effect – for decades, they developed a brand-new asset-based community development program designed to benefit the whole community, not just its most troubled members. That program became Pathways to Education. Today, we enrol 92% of eligible students in Regent Park, giving them the academic, social, and financial support they need to graduate. We have expanded to more than 60 commu-nities across Canada. On average, drop-out rates have declined by over 70%, and the rate of students going to college or university has increased by 300%. Pathways to Education began with minimal funding, mostly from a few private foundations. As its innovative programming methods have met with marked success, its funding structure has shifted, and now government provides a much larger portion of the organizational budget.

Facts and Figures:Founded in 2001, Pathways to Education Canada now operates in 11 different communities across the country

By 2016, Pathways will serve over 10,000 students and alumni each year

Pathways is one of Canada’s fastest-growing charities, with a jump in revenue from $6M in 2010, to more than $10M in 2011 — a growth of about $4.6M in one year

It is the job of private individuals to take the risks on innovative programming that govern-ment is often reluctant to take – not to say that government can’t afford to take more risks. Those risks often involve redeveloping your program – what may have worked in one instance, may not in another. Adaptability has proven to be one of the keys for success at Pathways, as each new location – from Toronto to Winnipeg – is treated as if the program were being redesigned from scratch, allowing the methods to come from within the community, as opposed to without. The benefit of this flexibility is proven by Pathways’ results. One simple, unique idea can have major effects. Once begun, it is the job of the innova-tor to press on, to leverage successes, knowl-edge, partnerships, attention, and reputation to try to have an even broader impact. My recommendation for innovation? Keep responding. Keep pushing back against “Why bother?”

David Hughes is the President & CEO of Pathways to Education Canada, and a Board member at the Canadian Stem Cell Foundation and the Zerofootprint Foundation. He is also a former President & CEO of Habitat for Humanity Canada, President at The Impact Group, and Regional Director (North America) at SOS Children’s Villages.

pathwaystoeducation.ca

Focus on: The Centre for Social InnovationThe Centre for Social Innovation is a dynamic co-working space, community centre and solutions lab for non-profits, social ventures, civic leaders and entrepreneurs. CSI provides members with the spaces, relationships and knowledge they need to grow their ideas and create impact. In 2004, a group of visionary social entrepreneurs in Toronto conducted an experiment to explore the relation-ship among space, community and collaboration in the social mission sector. Their hypothesis: bringing together diverse organizations and individuals in a shared space would lead to greater social impact. The results: It worked.

The Centre for Social Innovation first opened its doors to 5,000 sq ft of space and 14 tenants in 2004. With a carefully curated space and a consciously animated com-munity, CSI began to see new ideas, new collaborations, and improved efficiency and effectiveness among their members. As interest in membership mounted, the CSI expanded, expanded, and expanded again. The Centre for Social Innovation now operates more than 70,000 sq ft of space across three sites in Toronto, supporting more than 800 members.

The Centre for Social Innovation has been a global leader in shared spaces for social innovation since first opening its doors. CSI is now set to open in New York City, to connect a world-class model with New York City’s world-class talent. Expect sparks to fly.

“Innovation is, for too many organizations,

an idea they were thinking about when their end arrived.”

– Michael Decter


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Offord Group

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Artscape grew out of the Toronto Arts Council in the mid-1980’s in response to a space crisis in the arts community. The real estate market was booming and there was real concern that the arts would be priced out of the down-town core. Artscape was one of a cadre of arts service organizations that emerged from that period with a very straightforward man-date to provide affordable, safe and secure space for the arts.

Fast forward to today and it’s clear that Artscape has evolved from an organization in service to a single community to more of an intermediary that connects the needs and interests of the arts to public policy agendas, community and neighbourhood interests, private development projects as well as philanthropic causes. In the early days, Artscape tended to regard the artistic community more as victims of urban development rather than catalysts for change, growth and transformation. Artscape’s involvement as anchor tenant and development partner in Toronto’s Distillery District revitalization was a game-changer for the organization. When Artscape became involved in December 2001, there had been several failed attempts to bring the site back to life. The District’s new owners Cityscape embraced a vision that the arts could drive the redevelopment process. Artscape was the first major tenant to get on board and brought 63 sub-tenants into the mix. Others followed suit and what was originally imagined to happen over an eight-year timeframe happened in 18 months. We will never forget our astonish-ment at the opening party when 70,000 people showed up and a new cultural tourism destina-tion was born seemingly overnight. Lessons gleaned from the Distillery project became the foundation of Artscape’s “creative placemaking” practice that purposefully seeks to leverage the power of the arts to drive an agenda for change growth and transformation. Artscape has applied these principles and practices in many different contexts to achieve

dramatically different outcomes, from promot-ing community economic development and social inclusion of a neighbourhood to deliv-ering new self-financing forms of affordable housing. The term “creative placemaking,” coined by Artscape five years ago, has gained currency particularly south of the border where the National Endowment for the Arts and major American foundations such as Ford and Rockefeller are now pooling funds to support creative placemaking initiatives. Artscape Foundation has been able to engage philanthropists in its work more deeply recently through a major gifts program. Artscape’s role as a not-for-profit urban development organization and its social enterprise business model made developing the philanthropic case for support challenging. Two of our projects, Daniels Spectrum and Artscape Youngplace, required $16 million in private support. Through the development of volunteer leader-ship, a specific fundraising strategy, a case for support, and activities to engage potential donors, we have been able to get all cylinders firing at the same time in a way that builds confidence and momentum. •Tim Jones has been President of Artscape since 1998. He also acts as a consultant and adviser in Canada and all over the world, speaking at more than 20 conferences every year. In 2010, he won the Global City Award for the Canadian Urban Institute’s Urban Leadership Awards, and was a finalist for the 2008 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award in the Social Entrepreneur category. torontoartscape.org

“CREATIVE PLACEMAKING” The Story of Artscape

by Tim JonesPhoto by Garrison|MacArthur Photographers, Courtesy of Artscape

The cultural sector at a glance...

ECONOMIC IMPACT OF THE CULTURAL SECTOR IN CANADA 2010

$39 BILLION

LABOUR FORCE

539,000

PERCENTAGE OF GDP

3.1%

“Creativity now is as important as literacy, and we should treat it with the same status.”

– Sir Ken Robinson, Chair, National Advisory

Committee on Creative and Cultural Education, UK

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What is the real challenge in health care?

My own experience of over 25 years as a board member of a num-ber of not-for-profit and charitable organizations in the heath sector has taught me the enormous value of philanthropy in spurring innova-tion and coping with change.

In my book Four Strong Winds – The Growing Challenges to Health Care, I outlined the forces driving change in health care services: new public expectations for speed and quality; the digital revolution; the ebb and flow of public monies; and new ideas of health.

Here are three examples of inno-vative approaches to addressing these challenges.

Speeding Up Diagnoses

Philanthropist and entrepreneur Emmanuelle Gattuso learned that patients awaiting their cancer diagnosis often spent a fearfully long time between various tests. Emmanuelle’s own experience with breast cancer provided an up-close-and-personal view of what was needed. Leaders at the Princess Margaret Hospital developed a proposal to “cluster” diagnostic testing and imaging so that a patient could be fully assessed in hours, rather than months. In 2009 Emmanuelle Gattuso led a successful campaign that raised $25 million to transform cancer diagnostics, to the enormous benefit of both patients and the cancer care system. Emmanuelle and her husband Allan Slaight contributed $12.5 million to launch the campaign. By uniting philanthropy and the digital revolution in imaging, Emmanuelle was able to meet the public expectation of speed in cancer diagnosis.

Using Technology to Improve First Nations Health Care

Saint Elizabeth Health Care is a Catholic char-ity with more than 100 years of proud history in providing homecare services in Ontario. It was my privilege to serve as a Saint Elizabeth Board member and Chair for a decade. Most of the over $200 million worth in service Saint Elizabeth delivers every year is funded by government. Saint Elizabeth has a deeply engrained instinct of sympathy toward the most disadvantaged in our society. Saint Elizabeth developed a software system to support quality care by its 4,300 staff. Saint Elizabeth undertook to support Canada’s First Nations communities with this learning soft-ware system, called At Your Side. Saint Elizabeth implemented At Your Side in First Nations Communities in Manitoba with the support of the Government of Canada. CEO Shirlee Sharkey proposed the bold step of offering At Your Side to every First Nations community in Canada. With $2 million as a Board commitment, this leadership role in strategic philanthropy spurred further support from both the private and government sectors.

Supporting Human Capital The decision by Sandy Rotman to endow a Chair in Health Strategy at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management has proven strategic. Philanthropy directed to supporting human capital such as an endowed Chair is less frequent than support for bricks and mortar, yet is essential to the renewal of our health system. The appointment in 2003 of Professor Brian Golden as Rotman Chair has provided a focus for health strategy thinking in the business environment of the School of Management. Hundreds of senior managers in health care have benefitted from this philanthropic support as well as many students who will manage the winds of change in the future.

Private philanthropy has a significant role to play in supporting innovation. These three examples underscore the innovative and very different roles philanthropy can play. • Michael Decter is President of LDIC Inc. a Canadian investment firm. He is also the Chair of The Walrus Foundation, former Chair of the Canadian Institute for Health Information and Health Council of Canada, and former Cabinet Secretary for the Government of Manitoba.

ldic.ca

Innovating in the Health Sector by Michael Decter

1 2 3

36.1% VERY OPEN

68.3% SOMEWHAT OPEN

2.8% NOT REALLY OPEN

2.8% WE LIKE THE WAY WE ARE !

Fundraisers Reflect – Part 2

The Offord Group Survey

How ready and open is your organization to invest in innova-

tion and new approaches?

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Innovation is...

taking advantage of the Information Age

Offord Group

OF CANADIANS SAID THEY HAVE GIVEN OR WOULD GIVE ONLINE

IN 2010

OF ALL DONORS HOLD AT LEAST ONE UNIVERSITY DEGREE

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Here are 4 Canadian organizations that want to drive innovation in Canada – take a look:

CENTRE FOR SOCIAL INNOVATION Established in 2004, the Centre is a social enterprise with a mission to catalyze social innovation in Toronto and around the world. socialinnovation.ca

CANADA FOUNDATION FOR INNOVATION (CFI) Created by the Government of Canada in 1997, the CFI strives to build Canada’s capacity to undertake world-class research and technology development that benefits Canadians and the global community.innovation.ca

CANADIAN INNOVATION CENTRE Since its founding over 35 years ago, this national non-profit organization has provided its expertise to over 20,000 innovators.innovationcentre.ca

INNOVATION TORONTO An organization supported by two charities, The Learning Support Council of Canada and The Greater Toronto Community Clearinghouse, with local, regional and global reach since 1993.innovationtoronto.com

INNOVATION IN CANADA

33%

OF ALL TIME SPENT ONLINE IS SPENT ON SOCIAL MEDIA SITES, HOWEVER FEWER THAN

OF NON-PROFITS HAVE RAISED MORE THAN $100,000 THROUGH SOCIAL MEDIA

1%

11%

72%

PEOPLE IN THE WORLD USES FACEBOOK

IN EVERY

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Being a non-profit or charity in Canada is hard. Charities are com-peting for limited resources and are faced with increasing demands for quality, speed, accessibility, transparency and accountability and, in some cases, are expected to do this with fewer resources. One option for charities is to work harder, which has led, in many cases, to burnout among those who work or volunteer for non-profits. Sometimes one has to hit a brick wall before one realizes that it might be better to work smarter or just differently rather than harder. For these and other reasons, there has been increased attention on collaboration and merg-ers among organizations in the charitable and non-profit sector.

There are different options available to orga-nizations that are interested in cooperating, coordinating, or collaborating with one another. Some options provide for greater autonomy while others lead to greater integration. Collaboration can be everything from informal networking to participation in membership organizations to the creation of umbrella groups or coalitions. It can mean even closer arrange-ments such as sharing premises and facilities by buying product or services together as well as joint ventures, research, staffing, training, programming and fundraising. However, some Canadian non-profit organizations and charities are choosing to undertake the most integrated form of cooperation: a merger.

Mergers & Collaborationin the Non-Profit Sector — by Mark Blumberg

Why consider a merger? In some cases, it is a strategic process in which two or more orga-nizations discover that there could be some benefits to merging their operations. In other cases, an organization has gone through some sort of catastrophic event or is concerned for its future and sees the merger as a lifeline. In still other circumstances, one organization sees an opportunity to take over another organization and its assets. Sometimes mergers are forced on two entities. Sometimes a funder may “sug-gest” a merger that leads to positive results. In some cases, talk of a merger is a face-saving way of avoiding discussion of winding up an orga-nization and transferring its assets to another organization. Finally, sometimes a merger is the natural progression of a successful partnership between two entities.

While mergers are often fraught with chal-lenges, as I discussed a few years back in an article on this subject, I expect that there is going to be an increase in non-profit merger activity in the future.

First, the cost of establishing a charity with reg-istered charity status is low. With low “barriers to entry” lots of charities continue to be estab-lished. In many cases, it is done haphazardly, because a founder has a vision but may not have a well thought-out plan based on actual beneficiary need and with sufficient resources and knowledge. With time and multiplicity of competing organizations or initiatives, it becomes clear that a merger is needed.

Second, technology makes it easier to collabo-rate and work together. Our world is increas-ingly not just about our neighborhood or even city or province. Establishing non-profits to

serve small areas seemed appropriate in the past. Now it sometimes feels inefficient and an unnecessary duplication of efforts.

Third, the new Canada Not-for-profit Corporations Act (CNCA) allows Federal non-profits to amalgamate, which they could not do under the old Canada Corporations Act. At least with Federal non-profits this will make it easier to merge once they move over to the CNCA.

These and other factors may increase the number of mergers and amalgamations in the non-profit and charity sector. Mergers can help organizations garner more resources to be able to improve their programs and respond to an environment that requires more transparency and accountability.

Groups considering mergers should plan ahead, clean up their operations, carefully consider the pros and cons of merging, and do their due diligence on other potential organizations. Otherwise a “merger of equals” may become one organization gobbling up the other. •

Mark Blumberg is a partner at Blumberg Segal LLP and works exclusively in the areas of Non-Profit Law, Charity Law, and Estate Planning and Philanthropy. He holds a BA from the University of Toronto, an LLB from the University of British Columbia, and an LLM from Osgoode Hall Law School in Tax Law. He is also on the Executive of the Canadian & Ontario Bar Associations, National Charities and Not-for-Profit Law sections. blumbergs.ca

Collaboration in Action: Five Canadian charities working together Five Canadian charities that are working together Care Canada, Save the Children, Plan Canada, Oxfam Canada, and Oxfam Quebec have joined forces to be the Humanitarian Coalition. As a joint Canadian approach to humanitarian response, the Humanitarian Coalition is a “one-stop-shop” for all Canadians during times of international humanitarian disasters.

A Positive Partnership: The Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund (Canada) and the Stephen Lewis Foundation

In 2011, the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund (Canada) was looking for an organi-zation to partner with around its domestic school-based program. A new home was needed as the global organization was shifting its strategy. With the support of two founders, donors, volunteers, staff and the Board a new partnership was born. Donors were encouraged to redi-rect their support to the Stephen Lewis Foundation, an internationally respected charitable foundation that supports community-based organizations turning the tide of HIV/AIDS in Africa.

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Offord Group

Offord Group: In your book Macrowikinomics: New Solutions for a Connected Planet, one of your major themes is the impor-tance of collaboration between organizations and people. What are some of the ways this might apply to a philanthropic sector used to competing for limited donations? DON TAPSCOTT: First, it is not a zero-sum game. The amount of money that can be given to philanthropy is not finite. Organizations that are look-ing for funds can collaborate to create new value propositions that they could not do by themselves. For example, a dozen arts organiza-tions could create something such as a cultural event that would be too big to manage by one of the organizations alone. Charities can tap into resources out-side of their traditional boundaries, such as how Proctor and Gamble does with ideagoras*. Rather than thinking all innovation must come from within the company’s top-secret R&D labs, which was the case until recently, P&G now finds more than half its new ideas from outside the company. They can post a chemical question on a public board, and chemists from around the world can offer possible solutions. Rather than being traditional chari-ties that simply accept money from donors, charities can now use the Internet to build much deeper

relations with their supporters and partners and benefit from their talents and networks.

* Ideagora was coined by Williams and Tapscott (2006) in their book Wikinomics, and refers to mass knowledge-based marketplaces made possible by an abundant supply of intellectual property, abundant demand for freelance problem-solvers, and the internet.

OG: In your chapter “The Rise of the Citizen Regulator,” you note that government agencies have had limited success in regulating irresponsible practices by corporations. You suggest having business engage in complete, on-line transparency, so that the consumer or citizen can herself regulate them. As charities’ spending and operating habits are becoming increasingly scrutinized, can this logic be applied to them as well? DT: Absolutely. In this era of unprecedented transparency, every charity is going to be naked, so if you’re going to be naked you better be buff. As we all know, sunlight is the best disinfectant. Indeed, it would be better to regulate the extent of the transparency rather than regulate the behaviour of charities. Full exposure of all charitable activities and expenditures would let the marketplace decide which charities deserve to prosper and which do not provide good value for money. This fits well with the trend of not-for-profit organizations adopting more business-like behaviour. Rather than

Life on a Connected Planet : Q &A with Don TapscottDon Tapscott is an interna-tionally renowned authority (and consultant and speaker) on the strategic impact of information technology on innovation, marketing, media, and more. The Offord Group recently spoke with Don about Innovation.

viewing donors as simply a source of money, charities should view their donors as being investors, and in a business-like manner demonstrate a return on that investment. Again, this is about deepening the relationship and building what I call relationship capital.

OG: There is much talk in the non-profit sector about social media, its uses and abuses. What do you think is the best use of social media in the charitable sector? What gaps need to be filled in this regard? DT: In addition to my thoughts in response to the first question, I think that charitable organizations could and should be using social media as a platform for collaboration. Follow the lead from today’s youth, who rarely use email because they think it is a formal means of communication only needed when sending a thank you note to a friend’s parent. Otherwise, Facebook, Twitter and texting are the best communication tools.

do something good in the world with their lives. The third reason is that it is so easy now to create an organization compared to the past. On this last point, small startups can have many of the same capabilities as large companies without the main lia-bilities – bureaucracy, legacy cultures, systems and old ways of working – all of which can impede innovation. Open innovation, where talent doesn’t have to be inside corporate boundar-ies, benefits all organizations, and the biggest beneficiaries can be small companies. •

Don Tapscott has advised business and government leaders all over the world. In 2011, he was named one of the world’s most influential management thinkers by Thinkers50, and has authored or co-au-thored 14 books, including Macrowikinomics: New Solutions for a Connected Planet. He is Chairman of Moxie Insight, a member of the World Economic Forum, Adjunct Professor of Management for the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, and a Martin Prosperity Institute Fellow. macrowikinomics.com


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“In this era of unprecedented transparency, every charity is going to be naked, so if you’re going to be naked you better be buff.”

This is true both of internal and exter-nal communications. The employees of charities should use social media amongst themselves, but the charities should also use these tools to deepen their relationships with their donors, suppliers, business partners and so on.

OG: In your earlier book, Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Can Change Everything, you and your partner Anthony D. Williams coined the term “prosumption,” to refer to a process by which the consumer of services and products also becomes their producer. To what extent is this concept applicable to the non-profit sector? DT: It is very applicable. Charitable organizations could tap into the expertise and perspective of their cus-tomers who are receiving their assis-tance. I agree that it would be difficult to talk to a whale if your charity is all about saving whales, but for a charity that assists people it could help recipi-ents communicate with one another and with the charity itself with the goal of improving their effectiveness.

OG: In your chapter “Opening Up the Financial Services Industry,” you discuss at length an innova-tive venture capitalist company called VenCorps. In the philan-thropic sector, the analogous phenomenon of social venture has begun to pick up momen-tum. Where do you see this trend going in the next 10 years, and what is its potential?

DT: Entrepreneurs from around the world log on to a next generation venture capital company or incuba-tor like VenCorps.com, and upload a video elevator pitch along with some biographic and business plan details. The community (made up of thousands of entrepreneurs, scholars, scientists, angel investors, service pro-viders and government officials) then reviews and ranks each entry. During a challenge the top nine start-ups (as determined by the community) go on to the next round, where they can win an investment, typically $50,000. That may not sound like a lot in typical VC-terms, but it’s enough to kick-start a small enterprise as some of VenCorps’ early successes have demonstrated. Post investment, the community continues to help the startup. Instead of relying on three experts to put in 1,000 hours each, VenCorps relies on 1,000 people putting in three hours each. The VenCorps platform uses the web to offer creative new ways to link up start-ups to get them access to not just cash but also to support and prominence. VenCorps uses social networking to give start-ups the keys to succeed, faster, cheaper, and more equitably. Everywhere I go in the world I meet young people who are creating social ventures. They are doing this for three big reasons. The first is to create jobs for themselves given the high number of unemployed young people. The second reason is their desire to

Offord Group

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The speakers at this year’s D3 gathering — AFP’s senior leaders gathering that aims to Debate, Debunk, Delight — offered a glimpse into the future across a wide variety of sectors. The brisk, 20-minute presentations got right to the point and even if you couldn’t attend, you could get innovative ideas from speaker videos and presentations like:

Why distractions might be the best spur for innovative thinking, from Mark Fenske, neuroscientist author and associate professor, University of Guelph

Why mobile phones are the future of marketing, from Matt Anthony, Global Chairman of digital agency VML

Why Canada needs to change its brand and what that means for non-profits, from Kevin Lynch, Vice-Chair of BMO Financial Group and former Clerk of the Privy Council

Why most brands falter on internal culture issues rather than marketing campaigns, from David Kincaid, Managing Partner & CEO of Level 5

What inspired Movember’s meteoric success around the globe, from Adam Garone, co-founder and CEO of Movember

afptoronto.org/d3

QUITE CONTRARY:

“Innovation actually is not especially effective.Copying is…[according

to Professor Oded Shenkar] Innovators capture only 7% of a

new category’s market, in general. Hence don’t innovate – become very good at duplicating… I think the innovation

mantra is propounded by business people who

don’t read and often don’t think.”

— Doug Reid,

Associate Professor, Queen’s School of Business

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GOING BEYOND RATINGS TO FIND INNOVATION —by Phillip Haid

Companies are constantly innovating and taking risks. Standing pat is not an option if you want to stay on top. This is obvious when you look at the change in published ratings of top companies (based on market capitalization) over the past 20 years. But the same cannot be said for the charitable sector. The top charities in the U.S. (based on total assets) over the past 20 years are the same ones that were on top 30 years prior.

What this shows is that there is a lack of innovation in the non-profit sector because it is (a) very easy to enter the sector (no barrier to entry) but very difficult to scale, and (b) no one is willing to take sizeable risks that could significantly accelerate growth because two to five percent annual growth is safer and preferred.

So what are some possible solutions?

One is to widen the rating system by focusing more on impact and providing a bonus score for organizations that take calcu-lated risks in both their programs and public engagement.

Another possible solution is to start cultivating a culture of risk-taking within the charitable sector by encouraging the boards and senior staff of non-profits and charities to allocate five percent (or more) of their budget to innovating the way they raise money and engage volunteers.

The more charitable organizations are willing to try new forms of engagement, test their efficacy, admit failure and learn from mistakes as well as successes, the better off they and the entire sector will be. Because the current model isn’t getting us far enough, fast enough. •

Phillip Haid co-founded PUBLIC in 2008 to create innovative and scal-able campaigns and programs that generate measurable social impact and business benefit. As CEO, Phillip is responsible for developing fundraising, advocacy and volunteer engagement campaigns, and running the company.

publicinc.com

Fundraisers Reflect – Part 3 The Offord Group Survey To what extent is inno-vation important for the future of your organiza-tion? Why or why not?

What people or organiza-tions are, in your opinion innovating successfully in the charitable sector?

“Competition in the field requires new thinking and approaches, espe-cially because the competitors do not see collaboration as an alternative.”

“There is a shift from giving as an obligation and expectation to

‘What’s in it for me?’”

“Crowd funding/sourcing platforms, social entrepreneurs, grassroots community organizers.”

“My favourite recent example is Kiva, [a] micro-lending website. It is vastly more effective than the World Bank or the Canadian International Development Agency.”

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With a mandate to promote and advance social innovation in Canada, the Pecaut Centre for Social Impact is a start-up or-ganization committed to bringing together people, knowledge and resources in order to cultivate the next generation of great social entrepreneurs.

Founded by business colleagues of the late David Pecaut, a vibrant leader of social change in Toronto, the Centre aims to help some of our country’s most promising social enter-prises accelerate and scale their programs and increase their social return on investment.

Through a Venture Philanthropy Fund, the Pecaut Centre for Social Impact selects a non-profit organization to work with its Advisory Board, a collaborative partnership of leading companies, from which to leverage knowledge and expertise.

PECAUT CENTRE

FOR SOCIAL IMPACT

Offord Group

A Canadian Approach to Social Enterprise

The Offord Group, alongside other firms on Pecaut’s Advisory Board, The Boston Consulting Group, Ernst & Young LLP, Knightsbridge Human Capital, Cossette, MaRS Discover District and McCarthy Tetrault, provide strategic services and mentorship in the core areas of fundraising management and development capacity, legal, marketing, accounting, recruiting and human resources, and program development.

In coming years, the Pecaut Centre hopes to launch a new program – an Accelerator model to provide planning management, marketing, and human resources in support of the scaling of high-impact new social ventures.

The Centre plans to commence its first project in early 2013.


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InnoCentive specializes in using the power of crowdsourc-ing to solve many of the world’s most challenging issues, such as water purification, oil spill recovery, and ALS bio-marker research. Established in 2005, the company operates on a simple premise – an open network can find solutions to our world’s greatest problems. With this in mind, the company initiated a prize-based challenge model which encourages the sharing of ideas and opinions through an open participation network known as InnoCentive “solv-ers”. Today, InnoCentive coordinates the views of 260,000-solvers who span more than 200 countries. The network is made up of individuals from varied backgrounds – Nobel laureates, academics, entrepreneurs, high-school teachers – who have taken on more than 1,200 challenges faced by government and non-profit organizations.

In 2006, InnoCentive partnered with the Rockefeller Foundation which focuses on helping non-profit organizations develop solutions in their work with the “most vulnerable populations” of the developing world. The partnership provides access to international resources such as researchers, entrepreneurs, and trailblazing innovation. A non-profit will choose a proposal that best addresses their situation, and with the financial support of the Rockefeller Foundation, the transaction between problem-solver and solution is complete. It empowers organizations to search for the solutions that can fundamentally change their world – avoiding the temporary fix of a superficial injection of money.

Currently, InnoCentive and the Rockefeller Foundation are teamed up with GlobalGiving, “an online marketplace for global philanthropy that enables individuals, corporations and other organizations to find and direct their funds to high-impact, grass-roots projects around the world.” Together, these three entities are sponsoring the GlobalGiveback Innovation Challenge to help people in communities that need the most help. The challenges vary from developing a renewable energy source in the Peruvian jungle to making the water from Lake Victoria, approximately 500 km3 larger than Great Bear Lake in the Northwest Territories, safer to drink for its surrounding populations.

innocentive.comrockefellerfoundation.org

BENCHMARK AGAINST OTHERSEvaluate what others are doing: check out what innovation looks like in other organizations – both for profit and non profit – and learn from their mistakes and successes.

START AT THE TOP BUT LOOK ALL AROUND Management buy-in will be important at the outset, but involve many people in the creative process. It’s not just the senior leaders who come up with great ideas, but you will need their engagement to try new things, especially to get budget approvals.

TAILOR TO YOUR EXISTING CULTURECopying what someone else has done successfully is not the best way to approach innovation, as there’s no “one-size-fits-all” innovation model. Culture must be considered.

DON’T BE AFRAID TO FAILFocus on the biggest potential opportunities, while also keeping in mind the risks. Trying something new can be risky, but standing still is even riskier in today’s competitive world.

LOOK FOR PATTERNS AND CREATE NEW COMBINATIONS Most new ideas are derived from other ideas – keep looking for new ways of putting together your organization’s puzzles.

BE PERSISTENT Innovation always involves more than just great ideas. It takes a lot of hard work and a focus towards the end result to hang onto one’s vision in the face of roadblocks.

CREATE A CULTURE OF INNOVATION Create a welcoming culture of innovation that rewards and celebrates innovation efforts, including failures, as we often learn more from these than the greatest successes.

APPRECIATE AND SHARE EARLY WINSShare your innovation successes loudly to help make your case for taking risks again. This can help to increase your likelihood for future and sustained success.

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INNOCENTIVE AND THE POWER OF CROWDSOURCING

GETTING THE INNOVATION PROCESS STARTED

Offord Group

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LEADERSHIP IN PROFILE Angela Chapman, National University of Singapore

Angela Chapman is a graduate of McGill University, where she worked for several years in development and alumni relations. From 2004 to 2007 she worked at the University of New South Wales in Australia as Director of Development and Alumni Relations at the University’s business school, then as Director of External Relations for the University’s satellite Asian branch in Singapore. She now serves the National University of Singapore as Director of Advancement, and is supervising Asia’s largest ever university campaign. She has been a speaker for the Council for Advancement and Support of Education, Association of Fundraising Professionals, and others.

Offord Group: What is different about managing a large fundraising enterprise in the Asian context?

ANGELA CHAPMAN: I have managed fundraising operations in Canada, Australia and Singapore. There are cultural, economic and political differences among all three that impact philanthropy. Asian cultures that have a Confucian heritage like Singapore tend to think more contextually rather than ideologically. There is a greater emphasis on relationships, and hierarchy is more important. “Face” is important and the implications for fundraising range from how to get a meeting through to gift recognition.

In Singapore there is an expression one hears often that reflects part of the country’s character: “kiasu”. It means “afraid to lose”. It reflects drive and competitiveness on one hand, but the flip-side of this is the fear of taking risks, of breaking out and doing things differently. One can initiate and try new things based on success elsewhere, but it is often better to pilot something small. Spectacular failures are very difficult to recover from.

OG: What innovations have been useful for you in a fast growing operation?

AC: Our most important innovations have been the introduction of prospect management and the institutionalization of knowledge. As relationships between people are important in the Singaporean culture, relationship information was guarded. As more of the performance reports have been created from our information systems, we have seen remarkable improvements in recording past, current, and potential donor information. This is translating into more seamless care and development of our relationships with current and potential donors, regardless of staff turnover. To mitigate the risk of damaging relationships – a particular sensitivity here – we have instigated a buddy system where senior staff mentor junior staff, including them in meetings or on calls, so that the junior staff can build up a portfolio incrementally. I think in Canada this may be viewed as inefficient, but given the distinctive culture of Singapore, it has proven highly successful here.

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TOP PICKS & Topics Offord Group recommends these inspiring reads & sites

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01 Macrowikinomics: New Solutions for a Connected Planet (PORTFOLIO PENGUIN, 2012)

Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams are the Lewis and Clark of the Information Age, and this is a must-read in today’s tech-focused world. Acclaimed by business and innovation experts from all over the world, this “Schumpeterian story of creative disruption,” as The Economist calls it, is a crucial guide to extraordinary benefits of world mass- collaboration through social media and technology.

02 Thinking, Fast and Slow (DOUBLEDAY CANADA, 2011) Nobel Prize-winner in economics Daniel Kahneman’s phenomenal book is an essential read for professionals in a sector that is overrun with “experts.” Kahneman’s detailed but endlessly readable study of intuition and critical analysis overturns much of the conventional thinking that surrounds business practices, and is definitely a boon to those who want a better understanding of the risks and benefits of unique thinking.

03 Stanford Business School’s Center for Social Innovation www.csi.gsb.stanford.eduStanford Business School’s Center for Social Innovation has a great website full of thought-provoking articles, case studies and podcasts – we definitely recommend checking out the sections entitled philanthropy, nonprofit management and social entrepreneurship. There is also an interesting article about the Kinetics and Michael J. Fox Foundation’s “Partnering with a Purpose.”

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04 Showcase of Fundraising Innovation and Inspiration www.sofii.org is a great spot to start when you are in the doldrums and need some inspiration. There are exhibits, articles, reading rooms, must-read lists, blogs and more.

05 The Other Side of Innovation: Solving the Execution Challenge (HARVARD BUSINESS PRESS, 2010)

Award winning faculty members at Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth Vijay Govindarajan and Chris Trimble have written a business management book that argues there are usually two ways to innovate – build special innovation teams, or improve on existing products. Govindarajan and Trimble argue that for major changes it is important to create special groups of people outside of every day operations. This is because innovating requires different skills and mindset than day to day operations. They make the case that innovation is about learning, experimenting, and taking risks. These are not day to day activities in most corporations – or in charities.

06 Volkswagon Piano Stairs www.thefuntheory.com/piano-stairsWould more people take the stairs instead of the escalator if it was more fun? See the results here. Check out this video by Volkswagon – approximately 2 minutes and worth the time to remember how innovation can blossom with ‘outside of the box’ thinking.

Offord Group

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INNOVATION: THE IMPETUS FOR CHANGE

Operational Generative, strategic, philanthropic

NEW MODELOLD MODELDRIVERS OF INNOVATION

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

PRESIDENT/CEO Inward looking, with service to the cause

Outward facing, change agent, strategic, focused on fundraising

DONORS Responsive to what the organization needs

Seek personal solutions, and an ability to have an impact on causes

BUDGET Under-funding makes organization entrench around tried and true

Under-funding drives priorities and creativity

Inflexible, rule-based, bureaucratic workplace

Flexible, performance-driven workplace

HR

STAFF Overwhelmed with work, resistant to change

Empowered to contribute to better/more productive work

FUNDRAISING Priority is annual giving for operations: Primarily acquisition programs, bequests are a pleasant surprise, cyclical capital campaign

Healthy mix of community and major gifts and donor cultivation and stewardship programs

Program-based, responsive, organization-centred. Freshen up the brand every 5 years. It’s about the organization

Focused dialogue on issues with communities that matter. It’s about the donors, the beneficiaries and the impact gifts make

MARKETING

STRATEGIC PLANNING Define Mission, Vision, Values,develop common platform, and 5-year goals

What ideas are worth trying?Develop plans of action, with near/mid-term goals with clear accountabilities and evaluation

The Offord Team on Innovation…

Alison“What drives me crazy is copying what’s – as my kids would say – hip and new and calling that in-novation. Innovation is a way of thinking, a fresh approach that unlocks that aha! moment. I like how Roger Martin’s integra-tive thinking model does this: consider seemingly contradictory ideas, take the best elements of each, and come up with some-thing superior to both. Being open and clear-eyed about your organization, identifying what works, challenging what doesn’t and applying new thinking – that is setting the stage for innovation.”

1 Nicholas“Innovation means lever-aging the unique culture and strategic assets of an organization. To me, do-nors have always been the most willing to challenge the status quo in charities. Pathways to Education is a great example of an inno-vative organization – they continue to evolve their model for each community in which they work.”

2 Avon“Innovation is more than just having a new or unique idea. It is about having the courage, passion and commitment to bring that idea to life. Sometimes that means making hard decisions about not do-ing things the way they have always been done. Artscape has epitomized this — their success is due to doing the hard work to make their innovative ideas a reality.”

3 Robin“I believe passion drives in-novation. We have to want to try harder to do things in different ways – innova-tive ways. When I asked James Price, the President & CEO of one of my most innovative past clients, the Canadian Stem Cell Foun-dation, what drives his and the Foundation’s innovative work, he responded: ‘We REALLY care about what we do and as a new orga-nization with a bold vision, we just don’t have a choice [ but to be innovative ].’”

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Offord Group Team(pictured left to right)

Elizabeth BenczkowskiAlison HoltKathy MikolajczakNicholas OffordPrabha MattappallyAvon MacFarlaneTracy dePassSara Di GirolamoRobin Fowler

To learn more about us, please go to our website: theoffordgroup.com


44 VICTORIA STREET, SUITE 1501, TORONTO, ON, CANADA M5C 1Y2416-640-4135 [email protected] theoffordgroup.com

“…The Possible’s slow fuse is lit by the Imagination!”

– Emily Dickinson

INNOVATION AND PHILANTHROPY · team does. Nicholas Offord. President [email protected]....

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