What is Project Innovation?

Innovation is a buzzword throughout development circles, from large institutional grant-making organizations to grassroots NGOs. Many donors ask about project innovation in the application because innovation forces NGOs into thinking differently and more creatively about how to utilize their resources and environment.

In its simplest term, innovation is using new or novel ideas and approaches to solve existing problems. Innovation also means being creative.

While an increasing number of donors want to know how innovative an organization or project is, it is often unclear what exactly donors regard as innovative projects. Many donors are very experienced and have worked in the development sector for decades, so innovation can be seen as something new and interesting. However, donors also tend to be very risk-averse, and trying something new is inherently risky. So, the challenge here for applicants is two-fold: finding something new that is also proven to work.

How is this seeming contradiction possible?

Notice that donors ask for innovation, not invention. An invention is something entirely new that has never been done or seen before. Innovation is a change or modification to improve something that already exists. For example, Thomas Edison is credited for the invention of the light bulb in 1879, however, generations of light bulb innovations have created the millions of different and improved light bulbs in use today. So, donors are not asking for something entirely new, but improvement or expansion of something that is already in use.

So how do NGOs work within this seemingly narrow gap to develop innovative solutions? By borrowing from the ideas of others. Good project managers are always on the look-out for new ideas. They might read about a similar project but in a different country, learn about a new local start-up with an interesting business model, or a new technology that can change the work of the NGO. Taking ideas from one place and re-purposing them for your own needs is the very beginning of building an innovative project.

No one idea will completely revolutionize a project. But a series of small adjustments to improve the project can add up to create major changes.

Examples of project innovation:

• Bringing mobile banking to a community that has never had access to traditional banking.
• Adapting successful agricultural techniques from one community to another.
• Partnering with government and businesses to improve efficiency in supplying basic necessities to rural and hard-to-reach communities.
• Using an app to increase literacy among young adults

When writing innovation into a proposal, be careful to understand the donor’s preferences. Some donors are specifically looking to only fund innovative projects, while for others, innovation is of much less importance. Do your research. Keep these donor preferences in mind when determining how much emphasis to place on innovation in the proposal.

How can a Project be Innovative?

Innovation is critical for NGOs wanting to meet the scalability of a project, its sustained impact and to maintain a long-standing relationship with the donors. For some NGOs, finding innovative projects is a challenge. For other NGOs, describing their innovation to non-specialists is even more challenging. Creativity and innovation are very difficult to attain in a project. Here are some ways of thinking about innovation that can help you find and describe your innovative solutions.

Place of Innovative Project

As no idea is completely new, innovation often tends to involve ‘cross-pollination’, where successful ideas in one area can be adapted to suit a completely different area. Here are some ideas for where this cross-pollination can occur:

• Location: Where a successful program in one geographic area is modified and copied in a different area where it’s like has never been seen. E.g. a 100% recycled bar of soap made in Bangladesh is introduced for the first time in India.
• Thematic area: Where a solution for one issue can become a solution for an entirely different issue. E.g. and app developed to connect global educators is modified to connect global human rights defenders.
• Logistics: Where a methodology or system for one activity can be modified to fulfill another. E.g. A transportation and supply chain was developed to deliver humanitarian relief to communities affected by war, and was modified to deliver regular consumer goods even after the region stabilized.

Type of Innovative Project

There are multiple means of approaching or implementing innovative ideas. Below is a shortlist of methods for approaching innovation:

• Programmatic: Where the project uses new techniques or technologies to reach impact. E.g. an organization decides to focus on men when addressing gender inequality.
• Financial: Where the organization uses novel ways to attract resources to the project. E.g. an NGO develops a membership model to attract small donations from beneficiaries.
• Institutional: Where the organization changes its operational processes and structures to accelerate impact. E.g. a social enterprise chooses to do away with supervisors and has staff decide all work activities in collaborative teams.
• Policy: Where innovative policies can be brought about by the project. E.g. a local government implements a higher tax on cigarettes and uses the proceeds for anti-smoking campaigns.
• Partnership: Where the organization starts working with new and unusual partners. E.g. an NGO partners with a trade union to address violence against women.
• Technology: Where new technology is used for impact. E.g. a group uses mobile phones to give hyper-localized weather condition reports to rural farmers.
• Communication: Where the organization uses a new channel to communicate with beneficiaries and others. E.g. a teachers’ group uses Facebook to reach out-of-school youth.

Purpose of Innovative Project

When explaining how an organization or project is innovative, it is important to also consider why the innovative solution is better than the more traditional method(s). Possible reasons include:

• Saves time
• Is more cost-effective or efficient
• Increases reach and potential beneficiaries
• Reaches new beneficiaries that would not have been reached otherwise
• Provides a more holistic, community-lead, or sustainable solution
• Increases outcomes
• Targets a completely new area (very rare)

Describing your idea of innovation to a donor can be difficult, but using the categories and keywords used here can help you make your description more organized and easy to understand.