Ministry Incubators, Author at Ministry Incubators

Where Are They Now: Jenifer Meyer and In A Pinch

April 24, 2018 by Ministry Incubators

A month ago at one of our Hatchathons, Jenifer Meyer hatched the idea to provide emergency kits for families taking in foster children–a gap that often goes unfilled, leaving foster families scrambling to provide for the children’s immediate basic needs. Today, just a month later, her nonprofit is called In A Pinch, and it’s functioning to meet those needs!

In her 3/17/2018 blog post, Jenifer describes her whirlwind journey, from verbalizing her idea to friends over coffee on a Tuesday—one of whom was helping with Hatchathon, encouraged her to go, and signed her up—to attending Hatchathon on Thursday through Saturday that same week.

She also shares a video of her Hatchathon presentation (watch it below—her presentation was “messy” in the first round, she says, but she made it through as one of four groups chosen to present in Hatchathon’s “Festival of Dangerous Ideas.”) In her presentation, she mentions plans to make a whiteboard explainer video to raise awareness of the project and how people can help. That whiteboard video is also now a reality, and you can watch it below too!

This is a thing. It’s a real life tangible thing. They gave me money. This is happening. I’m starting a ministry to help foster kids. It’s called In A Pinch. Guys. Pinch me.

If you’d like to support In A Pinch, please click the DONATE button below.

Hatchathon Presentation

Whiteboard Explainer Video

If you’re interested in attending a Hatchathon to help hatch your hare-brained idea for ministry, registration will open soon for the next one, which will be in Knoxville, MD on November 8-10, 2018!

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Three New Resources: Innovation

March 29, 2018 by Ministry Incubators

We’ve been highlighting useful resources available here on our website, and we’re excited to share this selection of three resources on innovation with you!

The Wagon Wheel Excercise

The Wagon Wheel Excercise, an innovation excercise for both youth and adults, is a great resource by our very own Kenda Creasy Dean and Mark DeVries. There’s a version for youth and one for adults, with both versions containing the same information–only the text box color is different. Both provide instructions for an innovation-stimulating activity in which people group themselves in a wagon wheel formation of two concentric circles, then ask and answer questions about themselves and their ideas as one of the circles rotates.

You’ll find these resources here:
Wagon Wheel Excercise: Youth
Wagon Wheel Excercise: Adult

Types of Innovation

This resource explores four types of innovation: architectural, radical, disruptive (“stealth”), and incremental. It gives examples of each, then challenges you to locate your place (or your organization’s, or your idea’s place) on a graph quadrant of the four types.

You’ll find this resource here:
Types of Innovation

Stay tuned for more resources to be highlighted in the weeks to come!

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New Resource: The Marshmallow Challenge

March 13, 2018 by Ministry Incubators

Need to kickstart a meeting, get a team into a creative frame of mind, or simply encourage your organization to think about what it takes to dramatically increase innovation? Invest 45 minutes to run a marshmallow challenge! We’ve just added this great resource by Tom Wujec of Autodesk and Peter Skillman of Microsoft to our website for you to view and/or download. Its lesson is that we need to identify the assumptions in our project – the real customer needs, the cost of the product, the duration of the service – and test them early and often. That’s the mechanism that leads to effective innovation.

You can download the resource (photos of teams in the process of doing the challenge and .pdf slides of the presentation) here, and step-by-step instructions are available on Tom Wujec’s site here.

(Please note: a URL link to marshmallowchallenge.com mentioned in the resource was not working at the time this was posted. See Tom Wujec’s site instead for information.)

Stay tuned for more resources to be added in the weeks to come!

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New Resource: Theology and Design–Design Synthesis

March 5, 2018 by Ministry Incubators

Here’s the third in our series of blog posts highlighting useful resources, also the third by our friend Bethany Stolle of Stolle Creative, titled “Theology and Design–Design Synthesis”! Bethany is an interaction designer, curriculum developer, and entrepreneur with a decade of experience creating physical and digital products for children, youth, and adults.

Here’s a small excerpt: “After designers conduct research, the data must be synthesized to bring clarity out of chaos. The sense-making process lays a foundation for ideation and prototyping. Thorough synthesis can help ministry leaders imagine new possibilities for ministries that are grounded in empathy rather than assumption.”

Be sure to visit the resource page to view/download the entire handout! And, stay tuned for more resources to come!

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New Resource: Theology and Design–Practicing Empathy in Design Thinking

February 15, 2018 by Ministry Incubators

Here’s the second in our series of blog posts highlighting useful resources, also the second by our friend Bethany Stolle of Stolle Creative, titled “Theology and Design–Practicing Empathy”! Bethany is an interaction designer, curriculum developer, and entrepreneur with a decade of experience creating physical and digital products for children, youth, and adults.

Here’s a small excerpt: “Designers engage in generative research at the start of a project to seek problems, develop empathy, and gain a deeper understanding of people’s needs and desires. The methods tend to be qualitative and open-ended. Generative research can help ministry leaders develop empathy for our neighbors, as well as invite others into a creative, collaborative process that invigorates our ministries.”

Be sure to visit the resource page to view/download the entire handout! And, stay tuned for the posting next week of a third resource by Bethany on design synthesis.

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