Charity innovation teams don’t need better ideas, they need more executable ones
Most charity innovation teams know they should not start with ideas.
The sector has largely moved on from the old model of getting people in a room, handing out Post-it notes, and asking everyone to come up with as many ideas as possible. Most teams now understand that good innovation starts with insight: user needs, supporter behaviour, service gaps, operational pain points, or evidence from research.
That is progress.
But there is still a second discipline that is often missing.
After asking, “Is this a good idea?”, teams also need to ask, “Can we actually do this?”
Not in theory. Not in an ideal organisation with unlimited time, budget and technical support. But in the organisation as it really is, with the people, systems, skills, priorities and constraints that exist today.
This is where many charity innovation projects run into trouble.
The problem with broad-brush ideation
Ideation workshops can be useful. They bring people together, create energy, and help teams move beyond business as usual.
But they can also create a false sense of progress.
A team can leave a workshop with a wall full of exciting ideas: new products, new journeys, new propositions, new campaigns, new partnerships. Many of them may be genuinely rooted in insight. They may respond to real supporter needs or service user problems.
But if the organisation does not have the capacity, skills or permission to deliver them, they remain just ideas.
This is especially challenging in charities, where innovation teams often work across fundraising, digital, brand, data, insight, services, finance and technology. Delivery usually depends on people who are already stretched, working to different priorities, and managing competing demands.
So the issue is not usually a lack of creativity. It is a lack of delivery realism.
Start with the things you can actually improve
One way through this is to stop treating innovation as a search for the biggest or most exciting idea.
Sometimes the best starting point is much smaller: find the friction, understand why it exists, and fix the things that are already stopping value from being created.
For example, I worked with Ripple Effect on improving their virtual giving product. Rather than jumping straight to a completely new proposition, we looked at where the existing experience was losing people.
Through usability testing, we found that supporters wanted clearer information about impact at the moment they were about to give. They wanted to know where their donation was going and what difference it would make.
That did not require a huge new product build. It meant adding clearer impact content into the journey, including a case study and specific statistics. We also improved the journey from adding a gift to the basket through to checkout, and changed terminology that users did not understand.
The result was a 75% add-to-basket to checkout rate.
That kind of work can be overlooked because it does not always feel like “big innovation”. But it is exactly the kind of work that can build confidence, momentum and evidence.
It starts with a real user problem. It works within existing constraints. It produces measurable results. And it helps teams learn what is worth investing in next.
Judge ideas on more than desirability
A common trap is to judge ideas mainly on whether people want them.
Desirability matters. If an idea does not meet a real need, it is unlikely to succeed. But desirability is only one part of the picture.
Innovation teams also need to assess:
Desirability: Do supporters, service users or internal teams actually need or want this?
Viability: Is there a realistic case for value? For fundraising teams, will it generate income, improve retention, reduce waste, or strengthen long-term engagement?
Feasibility: Can we deliver it with the skills, systems, budget and time we actually have?
This last question is often underdeveloped.
A concept might test well with users, but still be very hard to deliver. It might require data that is not available, integrations that are not in place, content capacity that does not exist, or sign-off from teams who have not been involved.
That does not mean the idea is bad. But it does mean the organisation needs to be honest about what it would take to make it real.
Beware the brief cascade
Another common problem is what I think of as the “brief cascade”.
An innovation team runs research, develops ideas, holds a workshop, picks a concept, and then writes a brief. That brief is then passed to marketing, digital, data, fundraising, insight, technology, supporter care, or any other team needed to make it happen.
Everyone is expected to understand the idea, believe in it, prioritise it, and deliver their part over the next few months.
This rarely works.
By the time the idea becomes a brief, many of the people who need to deliver it are being asked to adopt someone else’s thinking. They may not have been part of the problem definition. They may not understand the user need. They may not agree with the priority. Or they may simply not have the capacity.
A brief can transfer information. It cannot create shared ownership.
Build the delivery team earlier
The alternative is to form the delivery coalition earlier.
That means starting with a clearly defined problem or need, and bringing the right people into the work from the beginning. Not necessarily into every workshop or every decision, but into the moments where their expertise changes what is possible.
If an idea will need data, involve data early.
If it will need changes to the website, involve digital early.
If it will need supporter communications, involve marketing early.
If it will need operational change, involve the people who will own that change.
The point is not to slow everything down. It is to stop teams developing ideas in isolation and then discovering too late that they cannot be delivered.
Good innovation work should keep asking:
Who would need to make this happen?
What would they need from us?
What constraints are we working within?
What is the smallest useful version we could test?
What would make this idea easier or harder to deliver?
That turns feasibility from a late-stage blocker into an active design constraint.
Senior sponsorship matters
Cross-organisational innovation also needs visible prioritisation.
If an idea depends on multiple teams, it usually needs a sponsor at director level or equivalent. Not to control the work, but to unblock it, protect it, and make clear that it matters.
Without that sponsorship, innovation teams can end up relying on goodwill. They need a data person to help. A digital colleague to make a change. A fundraiser to review a proposition. A content person to write copy. A product owner to fit something into a backlog.
Goodwill helps, but it is not a delivery model.
If the work is important, it needs priority, capacity and accountability.
Share the work in the open
One of the simplest ways to reduce the brief cascade is to share the work openly as it develops.
That could mean showing early research findings, sharing prototypes, publishing decision logs, inviting comments, or making the emerging assumptions visible.
This helps people understand the journey, not just the final recommendation. It gives teams the chance to challenge, improve and spot risks earlier.
It also makes innovation feel less like a separate team generating ideas for others to deliver, and more like a shared organisational effort to solve a real problem.
The best idea may not be the most exciting one
For charity innovation teams, this can be a difficult message.
The most valuable idea in a portfolio may not be the boldest, newest or most attention-grabbing. It may be a smaller improvement to an existing journey. A clearer supporter proposition. A better handover between teams. A simpler form. A more useful piece of content at the right moment.
These ideas can be less risky, easier to test, and more likely to produce evidence quickly.
That matters, especially in fundraising environments where teams are often rightly cautious about risk. Smaller, executable ideas can build trust. They show that innovation is not just about big bets, but about disciplined learning and practical progress.
A better role for innovation teams
The role of charity innovation teams should not just be to generate ideas.
It should be to help the organisation make better decisions about which problems to solve, which ideas are worth testing, and which opportunities can realistically be delivered.
That means combining insight with feasibility. Creativity with prioritisation. User need with organisational reality.
Ideation still has a role. It can bring energy, involve people and open up possibilities.
But the real value comes after that: shaping ideas into something the organisation can actually do.
Because in the end, the challenge is not coming up with more brilliant ideas.
It is building the conditions to make the right ones happen.