Sustaining Innovation

Paul Light has captured the spirit of innovation. It is not aboutspectacular acts by individuals who labor against the odds, butabout the hard work of building organizations in which innovationis expected and possible. It is about tilling the soil so thatideas can flourish. Anyone who wants to take their organizationforward toward natural innovation should read this book. --Walter F. Mondale Any organization can innovate once. The challenge is to innovatetwice, thrice, and more?to make innovation a part of daily goodpractice. This book shows how nonprofit and governmentorganizations can transform the single, occasional act ofinnovating into an everyday occurrence by forging a culture ofnatural innovation. Filled with real success stories and practical lessons learned,Sustaining Innovation offers examples of how organizations can takethe first step toward innovativeness, advice on how to survive theinevitable mistakes along the way, and tools for keeping the edgeonce the journey is complete. Light also provides a set of simple suggestions for fitting thelessons to the different management pressures facing the governmentand nonprofit sector. Unlike the private sector, where innovationneeds only to be profitable to be worth doing, government andnonprofit innovation must be about doing something worthewhile. Itmust challenge the prevailingwisdom and advance the public good.Sustaining Innovation gives nonprofit and government managers acoherent, easily understood model for making this kind ofinnovation a natural reality.

"Paul Light has captured the spirit of innovation. It is not aboutspectacular acts by individuals who labor against the odds, butabout the hard work of building organizations in which innovationis expected and possible. It is about tilling the soil so thatideas can flourish. Anyone who wants to take their organizationforward toward natural innovation should read this book." --WalterF. Mondale "Many governments cannot tolerate innovation. Some can survive theoccasional innovator, but don't want to make it a habit. A very fewtry to institutionalize the process, to become innovatingorganizations. But it can be done, and no one is better qualifiedto show the way than Paul Light, one of the country's best analystsof the dynamics of public organizations. He's not only thoughtfuland perceptive, but thankfully, he can write." --?Peter A.Harkness, editor and publisher, GOVERNING Magazine Paul Light has provided us, at last, with a deep understanding ofthe elements of success in sustaining ?what works.' His systematicstudy of the characteristics of organizations that move beyond thesporadic innovation and the irreplaceable wizard will proveinvaluable as both public and nonprofit organizations struggle todevise new strategies to serve shared social purposes." --?LisbethB. Schorr, lecturer in Social Medicine and director, Project onEffective Interventions, Harvard Univeristy "Sustaining Innovation is a dynamic guide for any organization thatis prepared to make a leap to natural innovation. [Light's] insightand support is useful for all leaders, regardless of the kind ofzoo they run." --Kathryn R. Roberts, director, Minnesota Zoo

PAUL C. LIGHT is director of the Public Policy Program at The Pew Charitable Trusts. He has taught at the University of Virginia and Georgetown University, and was most recently associate dean and professor of planning and public affairs at the Hubert Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota. He is the award-winning author of The Tides of Reform: Making Government Work, 1945-1995 (1997), Thickening Government: Federal Hierarchy and the Diffusion of Accountability (1995), and many other books, monographs, and articles.