In conversation with: Dani Adams
With charities’ traditional income streams and ways of delivering impact in flux, Dani and her team have to find new ways to improve the lives of children, and that means trying things they’ve never done before.
My role is innovation transformation lead in the Innovation Bubble, which is a cross-organisation team. We look at new ideas that can deliver impact for children and sustainable new business models.
Impact can mean different things for us but ultimately it means improving the lives of children. That could be deep, localised impact, led by communities, or scale of impact, such as how many children we can reach through technology. Impact could be how we work with companies to analyse and monitor their supply chains and know they’re safe for children and that children’s rights are respected and adhered to.
Sustainable income can also mean different things. One of the things we’d like it to mean is bringing in new income that we can spend where it’s needed most, whether that’s a hunger crisis in East Africa, keeping the lights on so we can keep going, or investing in companies we believe will make a positive difference to children’s lives.
We need sustainable income models because the traditional model for international development is very major donor heavy — huge institutions like the UK government (through the Foreign Office), US Aid and the World Bank. We apply for grants and that’s not a predictable or sustainable way to keep going. This type of funding is in decline, and public mass fundraising is in decline. People are feeling the pinch and the market is saturated — there are a million good causes out there.
We have to explore new areas, or we won’t be able to deliver for children in the future. That’s what drives it
Public attitudes towards international development are different too — there’s less focus on it. With Covid and climate, there are profound challenges for children around the world but since the pandemic people are looking more locally, supporting their own communities, rather than a 100-year-old traditional organisation with all its overheads.
It’s important to work in an organisation where purpose matters but also scary when you’re using resources to try new things that might not work. It’s challenging for organisations like ours to commit to innovation. There aren’t buckets of cash and it’s a big responsibility. But we have to explore new areas, or we won’t be able to deliver for children in the future. That’s what drives it.
Traditional models of delivering impact and income are tired and in decline. We’d started thinking about new models and brought in Magnetic to explore startup labs and the value they could offer.
Magnetic accelerated us in a way we wouldn’t have been able to do ourselves. You challenged us to get out of our comfort zones, make a decision and try something. It felt really uncomfortable, really scary and really fast. But we learned so much from that process, including working closely and collaboratively as one team and virtually.
It spread wide and we had people across teams, hubs and countries involved. Joining all those different pieces can be challenging. It was important that people wanted to work on the project — and they did. That’s not always so when you’re trying to get people to do something outside of their already busy jobs.
We’re still in touch with the startups, looking at ways to continue working with them. We’re continuing to collaborate with the Kumwe Hub (our impact innovation hub in Kigali) to look at the greatest value we can add to startups and entrepreneurs there. We’re testing a loans programme to understand the impact it can make.
The thing I’m most excited about is not knowing what the next big thing is, and being able to do work like this. Since the project with Magnetic, we are looking at new geographies and where else we can add value to startups and entrepreneurs in order to achieve impact for children. We’ve got a few experiments running. It’s nice to see it all happening in real life.
This is an excerpt from our latest book Purpose: Built, it’s all about making change happen and designing a brighter, better future. If you’d like a copy of request one here.
Magnetic is a design and innovation company that helps design better futures. We’ve worked with global businesses to build capabilities, products, services and transform organisations. To find out more get in touch: hello@wearemagnetic.com.
