We recently hosted a webcast conversation between Kris Newcomer, Executive Director at The Firefly Sisterhood, and Marilyn Gorman, Lean Startup Co. Faculty Lead, on using Lean Startup methods to launch a successful non-profit as well as make positive changes outside of the business world.
In Kris and Marilyn’s conversation, they discuss:
- How Kris found The Lean Startup book and then used it to launch The Firefly Sisterhood nonprofit.
- How the methodology helped her move forward and make decisions despite not knowing all the information.
- How they used “Pivot or Persevere” as they were building their organization.
And much, much more…
Kris Newcomer is the first to admit that she became the Executive Director of Firefly Sisterhood — a non-profit organization that connects women recently diagnosed with breast cancer with inspirational survivors — by being in the right place at the right time.
The idea for the non-profit originally came from an internal competition at General Mills called “The Big Bold Idea.” Yoplait, a brand under General Mills, has always done work with breast cancer, so they pitched an idea called (at the time) “Big Sister, Bigger Sister” which won the contest. But after they got the money to actually begin to build the project, they realized that the idea was too big for them to do it justice internally.
That’s when Kris got involved. “I was working for another non-profit and got a call...and [was] asked if I could talk about starting a non-profit.” Those talks eventually led to her being offered the role of founding executive director of the project.
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