An 8 week project with Guy’s and St Thomas’ Charities to train a core group in the new product development process and then run an innovation sprint alongside the team to come up with 2-3 new fundraising concepts.
The Challenge
Guys and St Thomas’s Charities, which includes Evelina London Children’s Charity, Guy’s Cancer Charity and Guy’s & St Thomas’ Charity, support the incredible NHS staff and exceptional healthcare provided by Guy’s & St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust. The vital funds raised by the charity help to increase access to new treatments, improve recovery times, enhance staff wellbeing, and support the most vulnerable.
But there’s more that needs to be done, and the charity has big ambitions to deliver impact at a far greater scale. Guys & St Thomas’ Charities are at the beginning of an exciting growth journey, and saw innovation as one key area to help fuel that growth.
Our objective was to support them in their growth journey in two ways;
To train a core group in an insight-led new product development (NPD) innovation process
To guide the newly trained team through this process on a real brief, culminating in 2-3 new fundraising concepts, whilst ‘learning by doing’
The Solution
We ran an in-depth, 5-day innovation training session with key stakeholders and enablers across the charity - equipping them in key innovation tools and techniques, as well as giving them a practical grounding in how to innovate in their day jobs. Arming them with the skills, theory, knowledge and language to run innovation cycles, respond to complex briefs and confidently bring key stakeholders along the journey.
Following this, we worked alongside the team on their first Innovation Cycle. This 10 day sprint ran over 5 weeks, with the objective: “How might we create a sector-leading In Memory fundraising offering for Guy’s Cancer patient families that will deliver long-term support?” The output was 3 exciting new in mem fundraising ideas that are going through testing in late 2022.
Potential Impact
5 core team members trained in innovation
3 exciting new in-mem fundraising ideas ready to be tested and piloted
New ways of working and mindsets starting to be used by other areas of the organisation
Potential cumulative income of approx. £400k over 5 years
"Learning about NPD and Innovation sprints has been the most eye opening part of my career. Identifying the ‘why’ behind an activity is incredibly important to ensure you are meeting your audience's needs and that you are approaching fundraising holistically and innovatively. I can’t wait to pilot one of the ideas from the sprint and see it come to life! We have used many of the tools from the training in other areas of our work to support ideation and problem solving."
Vickey Fitzell
Event Fundraising Manager