Can your nonprofit benefit from design thinking?

Over the past few years, businesses and nonprofits have been talking a lot about design thinking. It’s a way to solve complicated problems using empathy, creativity, and rationality. It also involves quickly testing ideas to learn and improve.

What’s so great about design thinking is that it can lead to ideas that resonate and innovate. I’ve been learning about and using design thinking since 2007. I can’t believe that was almost 10 years ago. But my passion and interest have only grown since then.

I love tackling complex problems with design thinking and teaching it others. It allows anyone to find creative solutions and approach a topic from a different perspective. I recently lead a workshop for PreKindergarten and Kindergarten teachers at a local public charter school. They were looking for solutions to combining the students’ academic and developmental needs. After I guided them through the process, they were able to approach the problem from a new perspective and find creative solutions. The teachers quickly created the prototypes with supplies on hand and tested them immediately. They put several ideas in place the following week and refined them further.

If you’re struggling with coming up with new ideas to problems try design thinking. It’s fun and great way for teams to collaborate.

Want to learn more about design thinking?
Check out these resources from IDEO and Stanford’s D.School

Have you tried using design thinking? How was the experience?

ALSO SEE  design thinking, Inspiration