The Challenge

To nurture innovative leadership for building high performing nonprofit organizations.

In this period of fundamental and discontinuous change, the Peter F. Drucker Award for Canadian Nonprofit Innovation focuses on the development of innovative leadership and innovative projects aimed at improving the performance of nonprofit organizations.

Setting The Context For The Challenge

Nonprofit organizations involved in work with families, children, adults and communities are under tremendous pressure. As governments seek to divest themselves of day-to-day responsibility for social services and to encourage community-based responses, they are also reducing in real terms the actual dollars available to support those in need. At the same time, demand for service from community-based agencies is growing.

Poverty, especially among single parent families, first nations people and the urban poor is rising. Despite significant economic growth unemployment remains high, especially among those with a low level of post-secondary education. The knowledge-based economy demands more and more education, which in itself is becoming more and more expensive.
Simultaneously, community-based agencies are also facing demands to become "more businesslike" in the way they operate. This is reflected in the need for clear business plans, complex accrual based budgets, activity based costing and a new focus on accountability. Fundraising has become more critical, more competitive and more demanding.
With all these challenges, the requirements for leaders in nonprofit organizations to master new skills become more and more evident. The imperative for innovation is more critical than ever before.

The Peter F. Drucker Award for Canadian Nonprofit Innovation

The Foundation's programs inspire social sector organizations in Canada toward excellence in performance by finding the innovators, by celebrating their example and by sharing innovative practices.

What has the Drucker Foundation learned from looking at the innovative applications since 1993?

After looking systematically at innovation in nonprofit organizations since 1993, the Drucker Foundation continues to see the incredible energy and imagination expended to meet the continuing demands and need for innovative programs. We also see a process that is very clear as it unfolds. Not all progress through this process is accomplished in a simple, straightforward way. Some falter and return to a previous stage. Some leap ahead and then find they have to return to a stage. Effective and sustainable innovation goes through the following stages identified as reflecting the dynamics of innovation.

• Stage 0: Courage - finding the courage and willpower to undertake some kind of change, even though this may initially be controversial, demanding, challenging or distressing.
• Stage 1: Exploring the Environment - looking at new realities, challenges and opportunities so that the organization has a real sense of its socio-political and socio-technical environment.
• Stage 2: Synthesizing the Learning - reflecting on the exploration and looking at its meaning in terms of the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats implied for the organization.
• Stage 3: Integrating the Learning - developing a clear scenario for the future of the organization, which takes into account the needs of all stakeholders, the need for efficiency and viability and the need for accountability.
• Stage 4: Internalizing the Learning and Creating Ownership - going beyond a plan and moving into action in such a way that all who work in the organization feel that they own the process of change and innovation and have a stake in the future of the organization.
• Stage 5: Applying the New Learning - implementing the action plan, engaging the organization and its clients in the development of new ways of working and creating momentum for change.
• Stage 6: Reflecting and Checking - making sure the new ways are working and that some of the valuable practices and thinking of the past is not being lost.
• Stage 7: Disseminating - sharing learning, experiences and outcomes with other organizations and ensuring that the learning itself is understood within the community served by the organization.

This seventh stage, iterative process is common amongst nonprofit organizations seeking to change, innovate or respond to new circumstances.

What does innovation look like?

Six key criteria have emerged from reviewing more than 600 innovative practices that help focus on the challenges and achievements of nonprofit organizations. These are:

1. Innovative Practices - the extent to which the organization has had to adopt new work practices, new methods and new thinking so as to make the program happen.
2. Organization Wide Impact - some activities related to a small part of the work of the organization, while others have a broader impact on all aspects of the organization's work.
3. Outcome - the impact of the program as expressed by measurable outcome measures. Specifically, measures of key performance, which compares some old way of working with a new, more innovative way of working. These measures will help improve the way the organization achieves its vision and meets the needs of whom the organization serves, its employees, the funders and their partners.
4.     Sustainability - refers to programs which have a strong likelihood of continuing to have an impact over time and to create a continuing momentum for change are more valued on this dimension than those innovative projects that are "one off" and have an immediate, short term impact but are not sustainable.
5. Replicability - a key criterion for the award is the degree to which a program conducted in one organization could be and is likely to be transferred to another - what we have termed here 'replicability', suggesting the degree of replication possible.
6. Partnership Building - the extent to which the program has created and strengthened alliances and partnerships between two or more organizations in the nonprofit sector, or between the nonprofit and private sectors, or between the nonprofit sector and government.

These are not the only features of innovation. There are others.

In the course of our review, the other criteria that have emerged are change, a new dimension, mission related, recognition and maturity. But is it the first six listed that appear to be the most significant determinants of successful innovation - innovation that is sustainable, has an impact and has made a difference in the lives of others.

Conclusion

The journey to high performance in nonprofit organizations requires courage to explore and take risks, curiosity to consider new ideas, commitment to learn from the experiences and determination to apply the learning in order to improve individual, team and organizational performance.

This journey is not an easy one. More than ever it demands challenging levels of cooperation, flexibility and responsiveness among individuals, teams, departments and divisions. It requires new rigor in how we coordinate, assess, program and share resources. And it needs leaders with an innovative perspective, an entrepreneurial spirit, a holistic and multidisciplinary approach and a tolerance for ambiguity.

The future is about effectively responding to change, challenge and uncertainty; and about making effective use of scarce and valued resources, partnerships, alliances and networks.

The innovations documented in this website are descriptions of developments that are valued, have had desired outcomes and are sustainable and of relevance to the community. When the descriptions are read, look at them as starting points for your explorations and examination of possibilities.

"You cannot get to where you want to be by remaining where you are…"

Anon