There are several ways you can advertise for your non-profit charity:

Social media: Create a strong presence on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Use these platforms to share updates about your charity, events, and campaigns and engage with your audience.

1. Email marketing: Build an email list of supporters and use it to send newsletters, updates, and fundraising appeals.

2. Public relations: Develop relationships with local media outlets and pitch stories about your charity to them. You can also hold press events, such as news conferences or press releases, to get your message out.

3. Networking: Attend local community events and network with other non-profits, businesses, and individuals who may be interested in supporting your charity.

4. Partner with local businesses: Partner with local businesses to promote your charity and its events. You can also ask businesses to donate a portion of their profits to your organization.

5. Online advertising: Use targeted online advertising to reach potential donors and volunteers. Google AdWords and Facebook Ads are two popular options.

6. Events: Host events, such as fundraisers, community service projects, or educational seminars, to raise awareness and funds for your charity.

Overall, the key to successful advertising for a non-profit charity is to have a clear message and a compelling call to action, and to use a variety of channels to reach your target audience.

Starting a nonprofit charity organization can be a complex process, but it can also be a very rewarding experience. Here are the general steps you should follow to start a nonprofit charity organization:

1. Determine your mission and purpose. What problem are you trying to solve? What is the goal of your organization?

2. Choose a name for your organization. Make sure it is unique and not already being used by another organization.

3. Form a board of directors. This should be a group of people who share your vision and are committed to the success of your organization.

4. Obtain federal tax-exempt status. To do this, you will need to apply for 501(c)(3) status with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

5. Incorporate your organization. This involves filing articles of incorporation with the state in which you will be headquartered.

6. Obtain any necessary licenses and permits. This will vary depending on the type of organization you are starting and the state in which you are located.

7. Create bylaws. These are the rules and regulations that govern your organization and outline the roles and responsibilities of your board of directors and other members.

8. Fundraise and secure financial support. This can involve applying for grants, soliciting donations, and organizing fundraising events.

9. Create a budget and establish financial policies and procedures. This will help you manage your organization's finances effectively and ensure that you are in compliance with any legal requirements.

10. Build and maintain relationships with stakeholders, including donors, volunteers, and the community. This will help you achieve your mission and sustain your organization over the long term.

Successful Innovation and CEO

The role of a CEO in a new startup is filled with challenges.  The new CEO must be willing to learn from his mistakes and from others.  Eric Ries writes, “startup success is not a consequence of good genes or being in the right place at the right time.  Startup success can be engineered by following the right process, which means it can be learned, which means it can be taught.”[1]

The startup CEO must be a risk-taker as well.  The critical element of risk-taking process is exploration into the unknown.  According to Greg Gehrich, “a CEO who fosters a culture of risk and rewards will out-innovate the competition, and a CEO who supports agile product development methods for the entire business will grow a lean and innovative organization.”[2]  Successful CEOs are usually successful innovators.  According to Gehrich, best practices for successful innovation can be summed up in four points:[3]

1.     An innovation strategy counts

2.     Focusing on high-risk but higher-return innovations matters

3.     Innovation leadership is central to success

4.     The CEO must be the innovation leader

The CEO must encourage and empower an innovative culture across the company.  “Innovation, regardless of how small or seemingly insignificant, is already occurring in the organization,” writes Dr. Oster.  He adds, “The invisible innovators already have determined how to recast imposing corporate problems into small, tangible and quickly solvable opportunities.”[4]  Recognizing and rewarding invisible innovators could be a crucial undertaking in securing the success of a startup.

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[1] Eric Ries, The Lean Startup:  How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses, Random House Digital, Inc., 2011, 3.

[2] Greg Gehrich, Build It Like a Startup: Lean Product Innovation, California: Greg Gehrich, 2012, 91.

[3] Ibid, 91-92.

[4] Gary Oster, Emergent Innovation:  A New Strategic Paradigm, Journal of Strategic Leadership, Vol. 2, Iss. 1, 2009, pp.40-56

CEO Cartoon

The Role of CEO - A Brief Look

CEO is responsible for developing a long-term strategy for leading the company and creating shareholder value.   The CEO must have the management skill to hire, organize and staff the company.   Financial assessment in accordance to authorized annual budget of the company is a crucial aspect of CEO’s responsibility.  As such, internal and external risk assessment, implementation of internal controls, and adherence to the company’s standards and policies are parts of CEO’s activities.  According to Carver, “the job of the CEO is to work whatever magic it takes to ensure an acceptable amount, type, and targeting of benefits in prudent and ethical ways.”[1]

CEO is a liaison between management and the board, and is tasked with maintaining effective communication with shareholders, employees and the public.[2]  Therefore, the CEO will have to lead by example and encourage all employees to conduct themselves in accordance to the company’s standards and policies and also with all applicable laws. 

A CEO should be an innovation leader.  Dr. Oster writes, “The position of innovation leaders is complex, difficult, frustrating, politically dangerous, and often virtually thankless.”[3]  As such, a CEO must be courageous, creative and relentless. 

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[1] John Carver, Boards That Make a Difference: A New Design for Leadership in Nonprofit and Public Organizations, John Wiley  & Sons, 2011.

[2] Michael J. Worth, Nonprofit Management, California: SAGE, 2011, 87.

[3] Gary Oster, Leading Corporate Innovation, School of Global Leadership and Entrepreneurships at Regent University, August 2007, 16.

Why Prototypes?

The transition from concept-to-product requires developing a prototype.  Why prototypes?  Michael Schrage, a widely recognized expert on relationship between technology and work says:  “prototypes engage the organization’s thinking in the explicit.  They externalize thought and spark conversation.  They’re bandwidth-boosters and context-creators for both information management and human interaction.”

For most companies, prototyping is an important part of institutional learning, where creativity, skills, inspiration and invention, transforms into something tangible and real.

• Prototyping fosters intimate user involvement and contributions.
• Prototyping creates room for early product testing and design.
• Prototyping forces the use of plain language.
• Rapid prototyping can demonstrate feasibility of an idea.
• Prototyping can be used to secure funding from venture capitalists.
• Prototyping helps focus on the variables.  Prototyping helps identify one’s resources and tools.
• Prototyping sparks creativity.
• Prototyping can help improve the design and functionality.
• Prototyping eases and improves assembly and development.

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Design Thinking

Innovation of individual entrepreneurs is one of the major contributors to technological development. Innovation tends to flourish when opportunities to create new science exist side-by-side with those able and willing to use the science and when organizations can couple science to technology and technologies to marketplace.[1]

 

In the illustration above I have used focused observation and design thinking as tools in developing technologies. Focused observation refers to empathic research. People are looking for experience, not product.[2] According to Tim Brown, “the steady increase in new forms of consumption based on a 'shared economy' might indicate that many people—especially younger people—are turning away from materialism”. [3] Therefore empathic research, which is qualitative in nature and based upon focused observation, can play an important role in satisfying customer preferences.[4]  Design thinking refers to creation of a perfect balance between desirability, economic viability and technical feasibility.[5] 

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[1] Technological Development ins Industry, Industrial Systems Research, Industrial Systems Research Publishing, 2003

[2] Period 2 Audio, Gary Oster, Technology and Commerce (BMBA 620), Regent University

[3] Bid Idea 2013 – Designing the Necessities of Life, Tim Brown, Design Thinking, December 11, 2012, Found online at http://designthinking.ideo.com/?p=830

[4] Divining the Need, Compensatory Behavior of Customers, Gary W. Oster, Regent Global Business Review, August 2008

[5] A Call for Design Thinking, Tim Brown, TedGlobal, July 2009, found on http://blog.ted.com/2009/09/29/a_call_for_desi/

Cross-Field Integation & Technologial Adaptation

Cross-field integration is integration of emerging and existing technologies to create new products. One of the main advantages of cross-field integration as we see in Isaiah and Joel is resource conservation.[1] Due to limited resources and for the purposes of God and the community, the society had to embrace cross-integration and technological adaptation to survive or co-exist in harmony.  

From a socio-economic stand point, in both cases integration/adaptation allowed for:

1.   Minimum consumption of energy[2] - this allows the society to save its energy resources to be divided among other sectors or needs
2.  Cost-effectiveness[3] - in times of war or peace cost-saving will provide allocations for other strategies
3. Waste minimization[4] - an environmental-friendly approach makes the consumers/customers feel good about using the technology
4. Environmental sustainability[5] - maintaining a sensible approach to cultural needs and natural resources
5. Fulfilling social responsibility[6] - In the case of Isaiah and Joel, they sought alignment to divine social responsibility which was a religious duty. In the case of contemporary business, the focus is on being socially and culturally sensitive (responsible) to customers, employees as well as local and international communities.

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[1] Process Integration for Resource Conservation, Dominic C.Y. Foo, CRC Press, 2012

[2] Adaptation and Mitigation Strategies for Climate Change, Akimasa Sumi, Springer, 2010

[3] Methodological and Technological Issues in Technology Transfer, Bert Metz, Ogunlade R. Davidson, Cambridge University Press, 2000

[4] Environmental concerns and Strategies, A.K. Shivastava, APH Publishing, 2007

[5] Techniques and Technologies for Sustainability, Adrian Atkinson, Univerlagtuberlin, 2008

[6] Corporate Social Responsibility, David Crowther, Guler Aras, Bookboon, 2008

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A good use of perpetual beta test

While in perpetual beta state, an organization may find that some of its observed-consumers may not be just early adapters, but rather active innovators.  As such, an organization may prolong a perpetual beta state to give it time to take the data from their innovative users and improve the design, service and product.   This observation research method can tremendously helps an organization to improve existing products and product functionalities.[1]  


In addition, I would probably set up an internal system within the organization to identify active innovators from among customers to make them one of my primary observation groups prior to launching a product or service.  

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[1] Joe Tidd, John Bessant, Managing Innovation:  Integrating Technological, Market and Organizational Change, John Wiley & Sons, 2011

Customer intimacy is essential for success

Innovative culture promotes a culture of driving customer success & satisfaction - Mike A.

It’s a fact that no one-product can satisfy the needs of customers.  Organizations that focus on customer intimacy try to find a total solution that encompasses a unique range of superior service to maximize the benefit from the product offered.[1]  A company can maintain intimacy with its customers by:

1. Knowing its customers and gaining detailed knowledge about them and their needs and habits
2. Increase solutions offered
3. Enhance share of targeted customer spending
4. Provide customer information and data to employee so they can better engage and serve the customer
5. Promote a culture of driving client success
6. Strive to create long term relationships with clients

A customer-intimate organization should have a strategy to reach different types of customers.  A rigid one-size-fit-all model should be substituted for a dynamic, rich culture to engage all types of customers.

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[1] Paul R. Niven, Balanced Scorecard Step-By-Step: Maximizing Performance and Maintaining Results, John Wiley & Sons, 2006

Quantitative AND Qualitative Research - Two Essentials for Product Development

It is true that “the customer’s ability to guide the development of new products and services is limited by their experience and their ability to imagine and describe possible innovation”[1], however, organizations would stand to lose relevancy if they marginalize the customer’s involvement in product development.[2]. 

Customer’s participation in development process doesn’t have to be a all-or-none approach.  A small cross section of consumers, if given a prototype or a demo of the product can provide as valuable a feedback to the designers as quantitative data from researchers.  This is not to suggest that empathic observation and research should replace other research methods by the organization.  However, empathic research findings are usually reflective of specific users and limited use scenarios.  Adam Silver, a strategist at Frog Design thinks ethnography is, on its own, unable to provide the kind of information needed to validate product and service ideas across wide audiences.[3]   In other words, by itself, empathic research lacks breadth. 

It’s therefore prudent for quantitative and qualitative interpretations not to limit the design development, but to craft a meaningful experience for the user from the tension between the two.

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[1] Leonard, Dorothy, and Jeffrey F. Rayport. 1997. "Spark innovation through empathic design." Harvard Business Review 75, 102. OmniFile Full Text Mega (H.W. Wilson), EBSCOhost (accessed May 27, 2012).

[2] Gary Oster, Divining the Need, Compensatory Behavior of Customers, Regent Global Business Review,  August 2008

[3] Larry Irons, Empathic Research Methods and Design Strategy, Getting Beyond the Quantitative/Qualitative Debate, VatorNews, July 22, 2008, found online at http://vator.tv/news/2008-07-21-empathic-research-methods-and-design-strategy

Importance of Empathic Research in Developing Products

Innovative culture must address unarticulated and undiscovered needs - Mike A.

Empathy means being able to sympathize or relate to others through better understanding their state of mind.[1]  Empathic research helps businesses identify what customers really want rather than developing products that companies choose to offer – it observes how consumers use products in their own settings, rather than in controlled environment.[2] 

Although focused-group research yields good results, its participants usually tend to give researcher what the researcher wants to know or hear rather than the “truth”, whereas, empathic research is valuable in getting to unarticulated and undiscovered needs.[3]

Empathic research is called qualitative to contrast it with the quantitative approach, which refers to measurements.[4]  As such, empathic observational research should still be conducted in a systematic format, utilizing photos, videos or direct observation of consumer’s compensatory behavior.[5]  Developing a close relationship with consumers and making them a part of the product development process should be a priority.  Suri believes there are four classes of methods for understanding what really matters:[6]

1. Learning from data, whether secondary sources of our own analyses
2. Looking at people in context
3. Asking people to participate
4. Trying things ourselves

As effective as it is, empathic observation research should not be the only research method conducted by an organization.

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[1] [5] Gary Oster, Divining the Need, Compensatory Behavior of Customers, Regent Global Business Review,  August 2008

[2] Christine M. Piotrowski, Problem Solving and Critical Thinking for Designers, John Wiley & Sons, 2011

[3] Randy Schueller, Perry Romanowski, Multifunctional Cosmetics, Volume 26 of Cosmetic Science and Technology Series, CRC Press, 2002

[4] David E. McNabb, Research Methods in Public Administration and Nonprofit Management: Quantitative and Qualitative Approaches, M.E. Sharpe, 2008

[6] Jane Fulton Suri, The Experience Evolution: Developments in Design Practice, The Design Journal, Volume 6, Issue 2, 2000

From data to design to product - A consumer-focused approach

What are some the things that go on between the gathering of the data and the introduction of new products and services?

In her article, Design Practice, Jane Fulton addresses the question by providing the following model: [1]

1. Design based on projective and empathic techniques (gathered data)
2. Exploring design ideas and concepts based on models that fit multiple dimensions of people’s experiences.
3. Communicating experiential ideas and looking at people in context to build informed-designs
4.  An interactive functional experience between the design team and the various consumer groups, to promote shared visions and design and invent new tools.

Every new product and service, regardless of design, is in a perpetual beta test. Companies that invest in empathic research can gain much in making their products and services meaningful and relevant. [2]

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[1] Jane Fulton Suri, The Experience Evolution: Developments in Design Practice, The Design Journal, Volume 6, Issue 2, 2000

[2] Gary Oster, Divining the Need, Compensatory Behavior of Customers, Regent University School of Global Leadership & Entrepreneurship, August 2008