Why Does the Social Sector Need Creativity?
As the world becomes more complex and volatile, creativity is needed more than ever to navigate it. We'd add that creativity is important because without it, we cannot imagine, let alone build, what is to replace today's inequitable, broken systems.
Aiming straight for innovation without developing the imaginative and creative powers on which it depends, would be like an athlete hoping to win a gold medal at the Olympic Games but with no intention of exercising beforehand.
— Ken Robinson, Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative
Creative thinking is the skill with the fastest growing importance in the workplace.
In recent years, creative thinking has drastically risen in importance as a desired core worker skill—as evidenced in the World Economic Forum’s 2023 Future of Jobs report — and is now the second most desired workplace skill.
We ranked the top ten skills using a weighted scoring system, which means that skills were given weight based on their importance in the future of work core skill ranking. We used these weighted scores to create a chart of the data.
As a data cleaning rule, we maintained the score to the left for missing data. This means that we kept the same score for the skill "complex problem-solving" from the 2022 period in the 2023 period, even though it was missing a ranking. We applied this rule because although complex problem-solving is highly emphasized as a rising important skill for workers in the future of work in the 2023 report, it was not ranked in the report.
Learn About Our Methodology
Source: World Economic Forum's Future of Job Reports 2018, 2020, 2022, 2023
Weighted Rankings
Global leaders like the UN recognize creativity as a catalyst for social progress and development.
It seems fair to say that few people think "creative powerhouse" when they think of the United Nations. Yet, ironically, the UN says of their own organization, "that the creation of the United Nations was a bold act of collective imagination and hope in 1945," and they recently published a report called The Most Creative Look to the Future: Imagination and Creative Practice in Service of Organizational Transformation. Check out how the U.N. itself is touting the need for more creativity and imagination to diffuse the many crises of our time.
True innovation is indeed impossible without the skill sets and behaviors associated with imagination and creative practice.
– UN Global Pulse, The Most Creative Look to the Future
Explore Our
Top 10 Reasons
Why
Creativity
Matters
in the nonprofit workplace
I’m convinced that our current training, experience, and well-laid plans will only deliver 70 percent of the results we seek, whereas the remaining 30 percent gap can only be achieved through creativity.
— Josh Linkner, Big Little Breakthroughs
More on Creativity:
Interested in working with us to build a culture of creativity? Learn more about how we can help.
We know it can be daunting to know where to begin, so checkout our forever growing power tool belt
We have lots to say, not just about using creativity and imagination to spark innovation, but about the social sector in general.
We love experimenting with different ways to express ourselves.
From Roads to Air:
Rebooting the Mind for Creativity
Power
Tool!
Would you throw random ingredients into the oven to see if they form a cake? Neither should you expect original ideas from following a recipe. Instead, shift your mind to creativity mode with the help of our tool using "From > To's"
View the Tool Here
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Creativity @ Work
Most people in the social sector enter this line of work to help build something magical; say, something that brings a longer, happier life to someone. Or that helps heal our beleaguered planet. But along the way, the day-to-day imposes its reality of managing grants and projects, prospecting, and attending to donor requirements. Creativity restores some of the magic, even for those who find their work deeply rewarding, making it possible to achieve more results, with more joy.
Interested in working with us to build a culture of creativity on your team? Visit ignitedword.com/culture-of-creativity or contact us at info@ignitedword.com
More Magic, Less Drudgery
Cultivating a Culture of Creativity
Have you been hearing buzz on how important a creativity culture is in today's workplace, but have only a vague sense of how your team would implement such a thing? Fear not. In the resource below, we guide you through key areas of practice and provide thought provoking questions to get you started. Think of the key areas as building blocks upon which more targeted activities can be layered.
Wondering if your team promotes a culture of creativity?
Want to learn more about creativity in the social sector?
Check Out Our Blog!
We have lots to say, not just about using creativity and imagination to spark innovation, but about the social sector in general. Check out some of our posts below or visit www.ignitedword.com/blog to find more posts.
The Country of
the Right Brain
Peeling the Un-ion: Modern Work Should Be About the Creation of Meaning
Destigmatizing Failure on all Fronts
Finding Your Door
to Creativity at
Work
How and When
to Unstrategize
We Have Been in a Trance
AI is for the Dreamers, Not the Experts
Does the Social Sector Need a New Vision for Generative AI?