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50 tips for social inventors |
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Score
82%
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5 votes,
Feasibility
0%
Originality
0%
Humour
0% |
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The following tips have been taken from a talk given by Nicholas Albery to the School for Social Entrepreneurs in January 2001. The talk was intended to give tips to those wishing to start their own socially innovatory not-for-profit organisation, possibly one involving publications and websites. The advice covers everything from photocopiers to trustees, and from standing orders to surrealism.
Financial
• Simple accounts to be done every 6 months
• Get alternative funds for the future within lifetime of present grant
• Do multiple grant applications for maximum possible funding of ventures
• Gradually introduce charges for e-mails and information that used to be free
• Get an online payment facility
• Pay fundraisers a percentage only, to get them to hand in applications
• Charge for your website by changing URLs – so word doesn’t spread about information locations
• Scatter shot fundraising does work
• Always fund raise for a new project, not an old one
• Standing orders for “Friends Of” your not-for-profit help give regular income
Structural
• Have a flexible ‘uncle’ body that can launch any charitable project initially
• Keep overheads low (work at home, do own typesetting etc)
• Keep things small and human-scale
• Let people take initiatives, run committees etc.
• Have two friends to do it with: move mountains
• Get impressive names for your organisation’s notepaper
• Keep in touch with your projects – don’t let them escape you
• Choose your trustees carefully depending on what you want from them
Work environment
• Get a good photocopier that does double-sided leaflets reliably
• Mature, responsive co-workers; try the Guardian and the ApprenticeMaster Alliance (www.apprentice.org.uk)
• Make work fun and surreal – eg poetry recitals over lunch
• Have a few things kept back, use things more slowly, to allow for periods of doldrums
• Involvement in every part of the process for you and co-workers
Personal Health / Staying Sane
• Do exercise you enjoy; maintenance of physical health
• Know your own work patterns (eg 11.30 am, work time alone)
• Don’t take yourself too seriously – be willing to play the fool
• Don’t get isolated from your tribe
• Imagine life as a target
Idea Generation
• Brainstorm to overcome worthy-but-dull ideas
• Take the wildest idea and bring it down to earth
• Look for synergy, win win win, ... solving lots of problems at once.
• Ask how can I solve the problem in such a way?
• Gather other people’s ideas and reward them in order to get them (see Global Ideas Bank)
• Be flexible with your vision
• Try the most ambitious ideas first
• Humour and imagination are more than a match for bureaucracy (see the article on Frestonia in the ‘International’ section)
• Try and make your living from amongst your 20 main pleasures
Outreach / Publicity
• Wait 50 years, be patient for results
• Make a book, a publication, or organise an event for each project
• Keep a full log and record all details of events and happenings in the organisation
• Keep all books in print, on the web
• Find a niche that is also an interest and exploit it
• Collect details of journalists – put together an e-mail list of journalists
• Maximum coverage from minimum effort where possible
• Send information (press releases etc.) to every publication at once
• Make web site interactive (ratings lead to best coming to surface), interesting etc
• E-mail or fax TV contacts who are always looking for features
• Make sure journalists give prices and phone number in articles
• Invite people on a personal basis to events
• Posh DTP (desktop publishing) and design goes a long way
Nicholas Albery
• To see how Nicholas Albery put these tips into practice, see his other ideas in this book and the websites of all the organisations he set up and the publications he produced. See the Nicholas Albery Foundation website
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