Charities must keep moving forward, or get left behind. With more charities trying to embed innovative thinking, Lucy Gower talks to different organisations about how they structure innovation.

The world is changing. If charities are to survive they must be able to respond quickly to the changing needs of their supporters and stand out in a crowded marketplace. They must be able to innovate.

Over the last few years, more charities have invested in innovation teams. But is employing a team of innovators the best way to help your organisation innovate? To find out we spoke to three directors of fundraising about their approach to innovation.

Scope: No dedicated team

Scope is one charity which is known for pushing the envelope. Its director of fundraising Alan Gosschalk is conscious of the importance of standing out and offering something different to supporters; whether that's new initiatives or improvements to existing products and services.

Driven by a need for capital investment in shops, back in October 2011 Scope was one of the first charities to launch a social investment bond. It was part of a deliberate strategy to position the charity as an innovative organisation in the eyes of government, funders, the public and the charity sector – and it worked.

Scope doesn't have an innovation team. A central part of every staff member’s job is to seek inspiration and develop ideas. Each fundraising team has an innovation champion who is provided with training and support and who is responsible for driving innovation in their team.

Need drives innovation at Scope. The charity believes that the only way to achieve ambitious targets is by trying something new. More of the same simply won’t be good enough.

The charity works to raise the profile of innovation among staff so that employees see it as important and valued. Anyone at Scope can come up with an idea and the lines of communicating those ideas are direct. If someone has a fundraising idea, they email Gosschalk. If that idea has potential it is worked into a business case for consideration. If it is broader in scope, fundraising cross-divisional groups get involved. How ideas are developed is flexible depending on the specific idea and the potential scale of opportunity.

“It’s important to start small and expand, that way new innovations don’t cost huge amounts of money,” says Gosschalk. “It also allows for failing faster: not failing in a stupid way because you haven’t thought it through properly – but to minimise risk.

“Failing and sharing is something we need to do more of, but it’s hard as while people understand learning from failure they don’t really want to celebrate it.”

He feels it would be a struggle to make a case for a budget for a dedicated innovation team at Scope. But given its performance, why would it need to?