Have a New Idea? Four Mistakes You’re About to Make and How to Avoid Them

Mistake #1: You jump from idea to action. 

Start small. When you have a new idea, the likelihood that it will create the effect that you're hoping for is pretty small. This is especially true in the social sector where we're trying to solve the most wicked and complex problems faced by our community: food insecurity, racial Injustice, educational attainment, stopping violence and abuse. Rather than spending weeks, months or years designing a perfect program, figure out the essence of what you want to do. You should be able to write it on half a page or less at this stage.

Mistake #2: You move forward with your plan without seeking input from those impacted.

Talk to the right people. Leave your office and go talk to people who would be most impacted by or involved in this idea. The most important feedback is from the people who might benefit from the program. Don't implement any part of your idea until you've done this. For example, if you want to make it easier for grant seekers to apply to your organization, go talk to ten grant seekers. Better yet, talk to 10 people with great ideas who have never applied for a grant. Do you want to reach more immigrants and refugees in your educational program? Leave the office, talk to culturally-specific organizations who really understand the community, pay them for their time to give you feedback and support you in the planning process. If there is no organization, learn where immigrants and refugees congregate in your community and ask them their ideas on how to address the concerns that you're seeing, or if they even consider this a priority area of concern for their community at all.

Mistake #3: You go for perfect before you know what’s good.

Create the MVP. We love the concept of minimally viable product (MVP) that comes from design thinking. What might an MVP look like in real life at a social good organization?  If you're trying to start a program for immigrants and refugees after you take into account what you learned in step 2, offer a 10-minute program and see if anybody's interested. If people are interested in 10 minutes find out if they want to come for 3 hours. If they're interested for 3 hours find out if they want to come to two weeks worth of workshops. The important part is that you work in small enough increments that you can keep finding out who might be interested in what and that you've invested the minimum amount of time, energy, resources and your reputation that you're not afraid to change.

Mistake #4: You stop asking for feedback once the project has launched.

Launch with a plan for continuous feedback. Launching is only the beginning. Continuing the process of taking small steps and seeking feedback should be a priority. I once worked with an organization that wanted to provide more culturally-specific support and education for new mothers from Burma. The organization hosting the classes considered it a major success when 20+ women attended weekly. It wasn’t until months later, they found out that >90% of the women attending class did not speak the language of the interpreter. They were joining for the incentives they received for attending, but did not understand any of the content. Language barriers prevented them from raising the issue, as well as cultural beliefs of not wanting to disrespect teachers. If you do not have a way to seek continuous feedback from those you intend to serve, or you do not understand the community you aim to serve enough to be certain you have a way to do that, your project could fail or even worse, cause harm.

Interested in putting people in the center of your work and putting these practices into action?

We’d love to meet!