Design Thinking and Nonprofits

Design Thinking is gaining popularity in more than just the business field. Design thinking is human centered approach to innovation activities that is driven by the understanding of people's wants and needs. Businesses have adopted the practices of design thinking “to help them be more innovative, better differentiate their brands, and bring their products and services to market fast "[1]. Nonprofits are now beginning to utilize this technique to find resolutions to social problems. In the article, Design Thinking for Social Innovation, it gives a good example of using design thinking to solve a social problem. The articles speaks about the Jerry Sternin and his colleagues use of design thinking and positive deviance to solve the problem of malnutrition children in Quong Xuong communities

I feel that design thinking is an essential tool for creating a nonprofit and existing nonprofits .  The purpose of many nonprofits is to meet the needs of a particular population what better way to do that then to ask them what they need. If your organization is not fulfilling its mission or purpose then you are wasting time and resources.  I have worked and served at several local nonprofit who I feel would greatly benefit from utilizing design thinking. One organization in partially is a nonprofit, I served at as an AmeriCorps member, who serves youth at a local juvenile detention center.  I feel they were not meeting the needs of the clientele by focusing on teaching a curriculum not structure for this type of facilities. By using design thinking  they would have been able to efficiently address the needs of their clientele.  The leaders of the organization could have engaged the residents of the juvenile facilities and the staff in helping to identity the needs of the clientele.   This would require the leaders to get out their office and immerse in the lives youth at the detention center.

[1] Brown, Tim, Wyatt, Jocelyn. “Design Thinking for Social Innovation”.   Stanford Social Innovation Review. 2010. Accessed 3 September 2015