The light and dark sides of innovation.

The light and dark side of innovation.

Innovation is a funny thing.

It's praised and celebrated in success and questioned relentlessly in process.

I am a firm believer that innovation must be functional and by that I mean it's not about being new, shiny, unique or one of a kind. The best innovation is found by refining existing processes and structures to make them more efficient, more culturally relevant, safer or cheaper.

To me that is the best kind of innovation.

We saw it with Uber, Air BnB, Spotify, Netflix and... the toaster, the kettle, the candle.

There is a bright side to innovation; it's exciting, it's progressive, it draws society and culture forward and used well can make the world a better place.

There is also a dark side to innovation; it can evoke fear, resistance to change, jealousy and anger.

I've spent the last 3 years of my life devoted to finding a way to bring functional innovation to the philanthropic space, refining existing processes and structures to make them more efficient, more culturally relevant, safer and cheaper. I've used 15 years of my career in not-for-profits and 10-years of a career in for-profit to try and solve what I believe is an impending crisis on giving, globally.

1. Donor safety in a world where media in all forms is no longer trusted (I mean families are now encouraged to have a secret safe word when talking on the phone so that you can prove your identity to one and other. It is terrifying to think we're conditioning our children to prove that they are who they say they are when we're talking on the phone.). If this is how families are interacting one of my great concerns is what does this mean for charities and outbound comms to donors in 1, 3 or 5 years? (inc. email, text, phone calls).

2. Increasing fears of scams and digital safety by donors when giving online, over the phone or links through email donations and increasing fears of the same issues of scams from charities when interacting with people unknown to them or their oganisation.

On my journey in building Charitabl. we sat with world leading business minds, consultants and ethics panels about how best to address this, the two most contentious and important issues were:

1. Do you take a fee per donation? (a common model)

And our answer was no, If we want to functionally evolve the sector and help charities retain more of the donor dollar. We must find a way to create a truly fee free platform.

2. Could we pre-populate the app to make it easier for both users and charities?

We discussed the reality that if we took a percentage of every donation this would be an unethical approach to solving the problems we wanted to address. BUT, if we could find a way to create a truly fee free platform that had a robust legal structure and accounting procedures in ensuring both safety to the charity and protection to the donor then it would be OK albeit unique.

So, we set about solving the first question (being truly fee free), then we enlisted lawyers and business advisors to structure the business that offered both protection and assurance to charities (always free, verified bank details and payment processes) and protections to users (refunds in full if the charity was unable or unwilling to accept the monies). We made the platform free to update, manage and change any profile listed. Additionally, we had a "no questions asked" policy to any charity wanting to be removed and we chose to find a registered third party for data sharing as opposed to "scraping" the web which we as a board and company believed to be unethical and out of alignment with the problem we were trying to address as part of this we chose not to feature logos and committed to never fundraising on behalf of any charity without their consent.

In the last month we have become the most talked about giving platform in the country and as much as I wish it was all on the light side of innovation it has more often than not been on the dark side of the ledger. But, we must remember that the dark side is OK too, there are valid questions, concerns, fears and worries that should be explored, asked and questioned.

My commitment though is when others try and pull you to the floor, your job is to stay standing and working towards functional innovation that helps evolve and protect a sector I've devoted my career to, benefited from personally and can see a desperate need in years to come to preserve and protect.

Thanks for everyone who has come on the journey with us, to those who understand the challenges of innovation and are willing to work together to drive it forward... and to those who are worried... thank you for raising your concerns no matter how you've done it.. we're the most talked about giving platform in the country and we're actively listening, learning and adjusting to help build a brilliant life altering product that helps donors, charities and ultimately the least of these in society who we all exist to serve.

I will always devote my life to ensuring generosity remains at the core of the human experience.

The images used in this post are real quotes and statements made by people. I have not shared names or organisations but just a select few statements made, light and dark.