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Lisa Ballam

Head of Marketing

A roundtable on embracing risk

Related post categories Digital products Charity & non-profit
2 mins read

At our latest breakfast event we explored the challenge that charities face with embracing risk when trying to drive forward digital innovation. 

Torchbox breakfast event at h Club

Charity Digital Innovation Breakfast at the h Club

We were joined by Ben Holt, Technology Innovation Lead at British Red Cross, Katie Colombus, Assistant Director of Comms and Neil Gilbert, Head of Insight, Innovation and Venturing at Samaritans, to share their experience in conversation with Olly Willans, Founder and Creative Director at Torchbox.

It was a Chatham House rules event so we won’t replay it all here, but here’s a few takeaways:

  • Developing an innovation culture may not be easy, but the sector’s moving forward and there’s plenty of experience to share.
  • Get innovating - you can only make progress by trying things. Failure is part of that process - so learn to fail fast (and cheaply)! And find a way to share your failures so we can all benefit from them - check out Pizza for Losers! 
  • Risk-averse organisations can learn to manage risk and embrace innovation, through processes and teamwork, like they have at the Samaritans.
  • Bringing in new senior people and creating innovation positions can change things quickly.
  • For those new people, half their job is taking people along for the ride. Get good at telling your product story and keep evolving it.
  • Strong research can provide a solid platform for an innovation case. Prove the need.
  • Think big as well as small, it’s easy to get sucked into short-term opportunities which limit your thinking. “When working on a level three project, if you’re not failing, you’re not pushing the boundaries hard enough.”
  • You don’t have to do it all yourself: harness the power of your users for ideas, the innovation potential of entrepreneurial companies for solutions, and explore different business models when you need to.

We were joined by digital leads from charities including; St John Ambulance, Tearfund, Breast Cancer Now and Cancer Research UK. 50% of whom have ‘innovation’ in their job title, which made for great conversation, sharing and learning during the table discussions.

It's good to hear honest accounts of innovation in the charity sector - the speakers were great at sharing the realities of their situations - both their failures and successes. It's also useful to swap stories and learn from one another without feeling any protectiveness or shame in things that haven't worked.

Beth Parfitt, Head of Digital, Tearfund

Thanks to everyone that came along and to h Club for the perfect venue. To be nudged about future Charity Digital Innovation events that we’re hosting, sign up here. 

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