Innovation for Social Change: How Wildly Successful Nonprofits Inspire and Deliver Results - Hardcover

by Leah Kral (Author)

Transform your nonprofit's ability to innovate for the future

In Innovation for Social Change, distinguished author Leah Kral delivers a practical manual for nonprofits and charitable organizations seeking to innovate their way toward new and exciting possibilities. In the book, you'll explore hands-on design thinking strategies and techniques you can use as a disciplined process for exploring what's possible in your organization. You'll learn how to identify hidden needs, deal with the knock-on effects of your ideas, and focus your efforts where they can have the most impact.

You'll also discover how to transform your ideas into action, building small experiments and learning from them before scaling them up organization-wide, and how to create an ecosystem for everyday innovation. Finally, the author explains what we can learn from social entrepreneurs as they boldly challenge the status quo.

The book also includes:

• Six basic and mutually reinforcing principles that will help you become more innovative today
• Instructive and engaging case studies from nonprofits with a variety of missions, visions, and political backgrounds
• Strategies for applying straightforward principles from economics to supercharge nonprofit innovation

A can't-miss roadmap to creative innovation, Innovation for Social Change will earn a place in the libraries of nonprofit board members, managers, fundraisers, and other professionals in the charitable space.

Front Jacket

Nonprofit leadership is a challenging endeavor. Many who attempt it find themselves bogged down in a conventional environment where "This is how we've always done things" is repeated a little too often. What's needed is a blueprint for innovative change and leadership in nonprofit environments.

In Innovation for Social Change: How Wildly Successful Nonprofits Inspire and Deliver Results, accomplished nonprofit consultant and researcher Leah Kral delivers a practical, hands-on manual for charitable and nonprofit organizations doing their best to innovate their way to a new level of impact. The author explores design thinking strategies and techniques you can use with your team as part of a disciplined, repeatable process for discovering what's possible in your organization. You'll learn to identify hidden needs, deal with the knock-on effects of your new ideas, and focus your efforts where they can have the most return on investment.

The book provides six fundamental and mutually reinforcing principles that will help you become more innovative immediately and offers instructive and engaging case studies from nonprofits with a variety of missions and political backgrounds. It also explains the application of straightforward principles from the science of economics to supercharge your nonprofit innovation strategies.

Innovation for Social Change presents stories from nonprofits working at the forefront of education, civil liberties, conservation, poverty alleviation, advocacy, and healthcare, as well as a synthesis and translation of the best ideas and thinkers from the for-profit sector as they apply to nonprofits.

An indispensable roadmap to creativity and leadership, Innovation for Social Change will prove invaluable to nonprofit board members, managers, fundraisers, and other professionals in the charitable space.

Back Jacket

Praise for INNOVATION for SOCIAL CHANGE

"Chock-full of real-world examples, Kral goes way beyond the theoretical by drawing on her more than two decades of practical experience helping organizations achieve meaningful results. Innovation for Social Change shares sophisticated yet easy-to-follow lessons to help empower social entrepreneurs and the organizations they lead."

-- Brian Hooks, Chairman and CEO, Stand Together and co-author, Believe in People: Bottom-Up Solutions for a Top-Down World

"A must-read for every nonprofit organization wanting to thrive in the modern-era. Innovation for Social Change highlights the benefits to humankind when nonprofits leverage innovation, and the consequences when they do not. Throughout, Kral helps nonprofits overcome innovation deficits by offering thoughtful principles and actionable practices to build an ecosystem that fosters a perpetual culture of innovation."

-- Nathan Chappell, Inventor for Social Good and co-author of The Generosity Crisis

"If your nonprofit needs a boost of innovation and inspiration, Leah Kral's Innovation for Social Change is just what the doctor ordered. Through practical examples and modern research, this book encourages nonprofit leaders to trust creativity, take risks, and, perhaps most importantly, learn from failure."

-- Arthur C. Brooks, Professor, Harvard Kennedy School and Harvard Business School, and #1 New York Times bestselling author

"A brilliant combination of useful frameworks, practical advice, and real-world stories that bring everything to life. Innovation for Social Change reflects many of the experiences we've had while building Recidiviz and shares new lessons that will continue to guide our growth. It's a must-read for leaders, founders, and anybody who cares about high-impact, creative solutions to pressing challenges."

-- Clementine Jacoby, Co-founder and CEO, Recidiviz

"This is an enormously helpful book, charting ways for us all, toward real transformational change. Leah Kral helps us see nonprofit innovation as a way to imagine a circle of compassion and then imagine, no one standing outside that circle."

-- Fr. Greg Boyle, Founder of Homeboy Industries and bestselling author, Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion

"Leah Kral has crafted an invaluable resource for philanthropic professionals of all levels to discover and apply best practices of innovation in their work. She draws together vivid examples from the nonprofit and for-profit worlds to help practitioners find creative and innovative solutions to the problems their organizations face."

-- Heather Templeton Dill, President, John Templeton Foundation

"Radical impact to longstanding, deeply rooted social issues requires grit, ingenuity and courage. We have to funnel the compassion often found in the nonprofit sector into true action for systemic change. Innovation for Social Change provides a roadmap to doing just that, transforming bold baby steps into sustainable, innovative practices that can change our work for the better."

-- Tina Postel, CEO Loaves & Fishes/Friendship Trays

"Innovation is not just for commercial businesses. This fascinating book tells stories from innovative non-profits, deriving vital lessons for how social entrepreneurs can and do turn new ideas into affordable, reliable and available improvements in people's lives."

-- Matt Ridley, author of How Innovation Works

Author Biography

LEAH KRAL is the Senior Director, Strategy and Innovation, at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, the home of heterodox thinkers and economists who work to discover what aspects of institutions and culture help societies prosper. She is a sought-after speaker at nonprofit industry events, writes frequently about her research, and offers tailored consulting to nonprofit teams.