Do you feel excited when you hear the term “innovation,” or does it evoke feelings of uncertainty? For many it can simply remind you that your daily work leaves little time to consider new ways to increase your impact.

If you feel the same way, you’re not alone. Many social impact professionals have full plates and are simply trying to survive, with little time to consider new approaches to really thrive.

In the Upswell workshop, Five Steps to Greater Social Impact, you’ll learn how to use Moves The Needle’s Lean Innovation to move at the speed of change, drive powerful value creation, and be a leader of real change in the sector.

Rather than “Innovation Theater,” where you “appear” to be innovative without changing your behaviors, you’ll learn the fundamentals to create real value for the diversity of stakeholders you serve (co-workers, board members, clients, donors, volunteers, external partners, etc). You’ll also get a behind-the-scenes look at how the organization SAY San Diego has transformed their organization and shifted to a value creation mindset and sustainable practice.

SAY San Diego is a large established nonprofit in San Diego County that helps children, youth and families reach their full potential. SAY, however, needed help reaching their full potential as they were having trouble operating efficiently and keeping their programs fresh. By trying new Lean Innovation behaviors to address some of their challenges, SAY San Diego has been able to radically improve their organization’s efficiency in these ways:

• Securing their largest private grant ever of $500,000 for a workplace-based child care program for an idea they validated
• Saving $206,000 over a 6-month period and hiring the highest number of new staff in recent history from addressing bottlenecks in the hiring process of a program with the highest staff shortage

“This process was a breakthrough and is becoming a natural and necessary part of our work, building on our core values and our responsiveness to clients and community. It’s a fresh way to make decisions, creating nimbleness and testing ideas within weeks, versus months. We can already see the multiplier effect.” Nancy Gannon Hornberger, President and CEO, SAY San Diego.

You’ll leave this session with new behaviors and tools you can use right away to help you more effectively solve social challenges and create real impact.