Re-imagine your Nonprofit as a Tech Start-up
I challenge you to re-imagine your nonprofit as a tech start-up. I realize this might strike you as strange at the outset, but think about it. The tech sector has already developed processes and technologies relevant to many nonprofit issue areas— by simply repurposing them the nonprofit sector could skyrocket forward.
For the sake of argument, let’s imagine how technology could transform domestic violence service delivery. The Support Network for Battered Women launched in 1973, the same year that Motorola invented the cell phone. While we now have iPhones that we can unlock with our face, elements of the domestic violence service model remain what they were in the brick cell phone age. But what if key tenets of the innovation economy—machine learning, on-demand services, and disruptive thinking—could be used for good? With input from domestic violence nonprofit practitioners and survivors, SVSV imagined what that might look like:
Idea #1: Machine Learning to Predict Domestic Violence Risk
Lingerie company ThirdLove uses a questionnaire fueled by machine learning to help consumers find the perfect bra. Imagine a similar questionnaire, built with data from domestic violence survivors, that scored an individual's risk for domestic violence (questions might include whether the partner suffers from substance abuse or if there is a history of violence in the home). Individuals with a high risk score could be immediately referred to preventative services, like counseling for the person completing the questionnaire.
Idea #2: Digitization of Government & Legal Paperwork
Code for America recently partnered with CalFresh to create GetCalFresh.org, a quick way to apply for food assistance. The 50-page application now takes just a few minutes to complete online. A survivor of domestic violence often navigates multiple systems at once--from the criminal justice system to child protective services--all while coping with high levels of stress, trauma, PTSD, and in some cases traumatic injury from assaults. Critical paperwork, such as temporary restraining orders and visa applications, could be digitized and streamlined.
Idea #3: Anonymous Social Networks to Connect Survivors
Social media app Whisper allows users to post anonymous disclosures—everything from parenting frustrations to employee gossip. Imagine a similar concept focused on domestic violence, where individuals could anonymously share their experiences and safely connect with a community. Many survivors in controlling and abusive relationships are not able to access traditional social media due to safety risks. Online peer support could be a source of credible, positive role models. [For nonprofits thinking about this, JDoe might be an interesting collaboration partner or acquisition target].
Idea #4: On-Demand Services to Support Survivors (via Collaborative Corporate Philanthropy)
According to the National Network to End Domestic VIolence, the top unmet service requested by domestic violence survivors (at 65%) is housing. Others include transportation and food. Tech giants like AirBnb, DoorDash, and Lyft are all examples of companies that provide essential on-demand services that survivors need. Imagine if these organizations and others partnered locally, year-round to provide housing, food, and transportation credits to survivors of domestic violence, administered through local nonprofit intermediaries.
Idea #5: Script-Flipping Legislation Allowing Survivors to Remain in their Home
While creative legislation isn’t unique to the tech sector, disruptive thinking arguably is. Imagine if it was no longer the victim’s responsibility to seek safety and flee their home, but rather the system’s responsibility to remove and rehabilitate the perpetrator. Policy like this is already being implemented in Australia with the Staying Home, Leaving Violence program—and could be a game-changer here in the United States.
Why We Aren’t Seeing More Innovation
To disrupt entrenched social problems like domestic violence and other issue areas, the social sector needs to fully embrace an entrepreneurial mindset. To get there, those of us advocating for a shift in mindset need to incentivize creativity and innovation.
A whopping 95% of new consumer products fail, and those are often tackling a linear, single-dimensional problem (make product X fit market Y). Rationally, the failure rate should be, if anything, higher in nonprofit work, which tackles multi-dimensional, entrenched, long-range problems. Yet, where the tech mantra of “fail fast" is seen as positive, nonprofit service providers are judged when they are deemed to have failed (and may lose funding because of it). Until everybody within the nonprofit ecosystem gets comfortable with more nonprofit failure, we’re probably not going to see a sizable increase in innovation in the sector.
Complicating matters, few nonprofits have the time and resources required to think creatively about new program models, let alone about disrupting the sector in which they operate. Who can make room for a design-thinking workshop when you're focused on delivering services in moments of crisis and with limited resources? How can this creative work be resourced with restricted government funding or limited ‘unrestricted’ funding from foundations? In contrast, for-profit companies have large research and development (R&D) budgets and formally structure opportunities for creative thinking.
Philanthropic Leaders Can Kick Off Cross-Sector Innovation
The David and Lucile Packard Foundation and the Heising-Simons Foundation catalyzed a conversation about innovation with their support of 20 Bay Area nonprofits (we at SVSV can’t wait to hear the results). One grantee is YWCA Silicon Valley, a leader both in supporting survivors of domestic violence and in disruptive thinking. While Packard and Heising-Simons should be applauded, more funders should be asking themselves difficult questions about what it means to fund innovation. A few fundamental questions every funder should ask themselves:
Does our Foundation have a perspective on innovation, including reasonable expectations around failure and learning, and a set of guidelines around how and when resources should be deployed?
Does our Foundation have staff with experience working in innovation, design, or technology who understand what innovation looks like in our issue area(s), and how we can best support our grantees?
Does our Foundation pay the true cost of programs and offer general capacity building grants, a best practice that is a precursor to partnering more deeply on innovation?
To be truly transformative in our thinking we’re going to need everyone in the ecosystem—funders, tech entrepreneurs, nonprofit and government leaders, journalists and the end clients of services themselves—to engage. Domestic violence services emerged from a movement built upon coalitions, community mobilizing, and courageous conversations that identified the needs of survivors. We need to reboot this conversation with a start-up mindset to reexamine the domestic violence service model—and other nonprofit models with the potential to be re-imagined.
Thank you to the domestic violence nonprofits and survivors who provided critical insights for this article.