1. Value Proposition

This box is really about two dimensions of your value proposition—the problem you’re solving and the solution (product or service) you’re creating. They’ll both be tested in steps 2 and 3 of discovery, respectively.

For the first dimension, enter problems your innovation will solve. Write some of the people you will solve it for into the Targets box. Follow your gut, name existing “solutions” as potentially part of the problem, and state them as plainly as you can.

The second dimension of your value proposition is the solution you are proposing. In business, the solution is often narrowly framed in terms of benefits to customers. In the social sector, there are often beneficiaries well beyond the specific people your innovation is targeting. For example, if you’re targeting legislators for a change in a law, the question “What value are we creating?” needs to apply to them, but also to those who will benefit from the proposed changes.

It’s OK not to be too sure about your solution at this phase too. The next step in the discovery process is to test your hypotheses about the problem with little regard at first for the solution. The interviews you conduct in the next phase may change your sense of the solution considerably. So stay flexible at this point!

As part of the Value Proposition box, you can put in specific statements about how your innovation will work, for example, “Users will log on to Catalog Choice.” What service or product do you think will get you to the change you’re trying to create? Finally, what needs are you filling? Needs are distinct from problems. For example, the problem being addressed by Smarter, Cleaner, Stronger was the lack of votes in the US Senate for climate change legislation. The need we filled by making an economic case for action on climate change was to give senators a nonenvironmental rationale for supporting the bill. By listing the need as a hypothesis like “Economic benefits to key states can shift their senators’ votes,” you can test in the following steps how important that need is to key constituencies, in this example US senators. You should also remain open to filling that need in a way that doesn’t depend on solving the problem as you have already cast it. In the SCS example, if the economic rationale was inappropriate or ineffective, perhaps the support of another constituency important to senators like faith-based organizations or key minority groups could be brought to bear to secure their votes.

Another way to fill out the Value Proposition box is to write a brief story about how your innovation will help somebody. The story can explicitly name the problems as well as how your innovation will work. I provide an example of such a value proposition for Catalog Choice in Table 4.1.

By the way, it’s never too early to think about how you’re going to name or brand your innovation, and this is the time to start testing not just for the idea itself but also for what you’re going to call your initiative. Kristen Grimm, in her great campaign planning manual Just Enough Planning Guide, describes some of the messaging thinking behind Catalog Choice.

While the campaigners’ goal was to reduce the waste of excess catalogs, consumers liked getting some catalogs and would react badly to a guilt-inducing environmental message. They settled on the name Catalog Choice as a way to convey the core value propositions of reducing mailbox clutter and giving consumers control over the catalogs they received, all the while doing better by the environment.

Chapter 7 of Kristen Grimm’s guide is an excellent resource for considering how to name your initiative for maximum impact, and Resources section of the website lists a number of services you can use to test your key messages quickly and inexpensively.

Table 4.1 provides examples of how to fill out the Value Proposition box for each of the four case studies.