Incremental innovation is crucial for meeting the needs of supporters and can be as simple as a gift, writes Clare Steele.

I love giving gifts. I take great joy in finding something unexpected that I know the recipient will love. It’s often something very simple, but a thoughtful gift given at just the right moment can change the course of someone’s day. If you’ve ever received a gift like this, you’ll likely know how special it feels knowing that someone else has considered and met your need.

This sentiment extends to customer experience. We know from recent McCrindle research that post-COVID Australians place more value on connection than before. Our work in releasing children from poverty is a partnership with our generous supporters, so this desire to feel connected to what they are giving has us asking questions of ourselves. What is an unexpected gift we can give our supporters that directly meets their need? How can we surprise them with a simple gesture that could bring delight and help them feel known and valued?

This, I believe, is the secret to innovation.

When we think about innovation, we tend to think of it being radical and disruptive. We think of big superstars like Uber transforming the taxi market, or Airbnb disrupting the hotel and travel industries; trailblazing, transformational changes that re-shape industries and set the pace for competitors. Often far less conspicuous is adjacent innovation. These smaller, incremental shifts are just as important for our teams and our supporters.

Over the past three years as CEO of Compassion Australia, I’ve encouraged our staff to eagerly pursue innovation so that we can bring more value to our supporters in the ways that are most meaningful to them. We’ve seen some small ‘gifts’ have significant impact as well as other new ideas falling flat. But the learning, the growth and the mindset shifts are irrefutable.

To give the gift of adjacent innovation to your supporters or customers, here are three ways to get started:

1) Get to know who you are serving

Technology alone will not create or deliver innovation, but it is a wonderful enabler. Technology will only bring innovation when we deeply understand who we are serving and what they actually need. This empathy is fundamental to human-centred design. Only by listening to our supporters and learning what is important to them can we give meaningful gifts that make them feel known. Everything else is just clutter.

We have embedded the practice of twice-yearly hackathons to implement simple front and back-end development changes that improve supporter experience. Armed with insights direct from our supporter research panel, the team spend an entire day collaborating and experimenting. This time has led to a number of quick wins with high impact, like creating a ‘past sponsorships’ tab on a supporter’s online account so that they have a digital record of letters and photos from previous sponsorships over the years.

Whether it’s through real conversations or research, listen closely to your supporters and dedicate time to responding accordingly.

2) Make space to take risks

Does your team have space to try new things? Across your busy calendars and overflowing task lists, is there time to fail? We must intentionally carve out time and space for innovation otherwise it likely won’t happen, and that means we cannot be scheduled at 110 per cent. Whatever the scale, innovation is risky; yet inaction rarely leads to breakthrough.

Earlier this year, our creative team set a dream in motion. They developed an immersive event experience to allow Australians to see and hear the everyday work of our partners overseas. The space enabled supporters to listen to the joyful sounds of children and families at a child development centre while watching recorded footage from a 360-degree camera on multiple screens.

At a time when field visits aren’t possible and child letters are slowed due to COVID-19, this experience has been a powerful gift of connection for our supporters. I’m inspired by the bravery of our creative team to try something new. There were learnings along the way, but we now have momentum to keep working on diverse approaches to field experiences.

3) Normalise continuous improvement

The search for the next big idea can feel like finding a needle in a haystack, and it’s not necessarily the most effective use of resource for our teams. Instilling a culture of continuous improvement is powerful. A cycle of assessing customer needs, creating tests and evaluating results leads to considerable gain in the long-term and makes us better equipped to lead out the big transformations with confidence when they come.

Our contact centre has gradually implemented a variety of changes over recent years to enable longer opening hours and more convenient communication options for our supporters. I’m excited to see our contact centre expanding in the coming months as we welcome a group of graduates from our Child Sponsorship Program in the Philippines to our team. Not only will this step provide youth with employment, but it also means our opening hours can better accommodate supporters from across Australia and will give them the opportunity to speak firsthand with someone who has been part of our programs.

We are still working at embedding our innovation cycle across everything we do, but the move towards this framework is already producing fruitful results—as I’m sure it can for you as well.

In your own pursuit of purposeful innovation, I encourage you to approach the process as if giving your supporters a gift. Give thoughtfully, be bold and keep looking for small opportunities to bring delight. Your greatest innovation could be one incremental change away.