Always Be Innovating

In recent weeks, I’ve talked with two founding chief executives whose organizations started in the mid-2000s: Scott Harrison of Charity: Water and Kathleen Ruddy of St. Baldrick’s Foundation. Both work on global problems: the lack of clean water for people in the developing world (Harrison’s group) and children’s cancer (Ruddy’s).

Charity: Water is a digital-first outfit that attracts millennials; St. Baldrick’s, a traditional disease charity with an unorthodox, grass-roots-first approach to fundraising. Both are rigorously transparent, telling donors where their money goes and what tangible results they’ve helped create. Not surprisingly, both have managed to engage supporters who are usually skeptical about charities.

In conversations with both leaders, I came away convinced that innovation is a constant process for nonprofits. Harrison exults in the success his group has had in bringing clean water to 8.5 million people. But more than 600 million still go without, he notes. Trying to remedy that continues to be a daunting task that demands constant creativity to keep donations gushing. His new memoir, Thirst, recounts lots of improvisation so far.

Ruddy’s organization has also seen victories (immunotherapy treatments for children) as well as challenges. Revenue from the charity’s signature fundraising events, in which supporters secure pledges for shaving their heads in solidarity with young chemotherapy patients, have plateaued after years of explosive growth.

With the help of its volunteers, St. Baldrick’s is now incubating new tactics that might one day spread more widely, while also building closer relationships with donors who can dig deep for the cause. As the biggest private supporter of pediatric cancer research, Ruddy says, it can’t afford to stand still.