'Idea Storming' for Fundraising Professionals

In a fundraising climate where oversaturation, more competition for funds and new technologies make attracting and retaining donors that much more difficult, innovation is vital for nonprofit organizations looking to survive and thrive not only today, but in the future.

In his book "Idea Stormers: How to Lead and Inspire Creative Breakthroughs," author Bryan Mattimore lays out techniques and frameworks on how to encourage an atmosphere of innovation. Mattimore, co-founder of innovation agency The Growth Engine Co., has worked with companies and nonprofits big and small for nearly 30 years, including the City of New York, homeless shelters, child-welfare organizations, museums, libraries and YMCA chapters.

Mattimore spoke recently with FundRaising Success about his book and how fundraisers can utilize its teachings.

FundRaising Success: What was your motivation for writing the book?
Bryan Mattimore: Over the last 20 years, since my first book was published, there's been a tremendous advance about how to design and facilitate ideation sessions and also how to successfully do innovation programs with companies.

I wanted to share that learning in part because the smaller and medium-sized companies often can't afford the work we're doing, but these techniques are valuable for them as well. It was a way to really multiply the impact of the research and work and empirical validation of all these techniques we use to share in a broader and bigger way.

FS: How can the smaller organizations — the one- or two-person development departments — take away some of the learnings when maybe they don't have as much time or resources to devote to these types of discussions?
BM: The book talks about all-day ideation sessions or even half-day ideation sessions. First of all, these techniques are very, very simple to learn and use. This is not rocket science. It's easy to do this stuff, so people should not be intimidated. And I wrote the book in a very how-to way so it will be easy to use the techniques.