Last year the design company started working with\u00a0Water & Sanitation for the Urban Poor,<\/a>\u00a0a nonprofit in London, and Unilever to develop a business to provide new sanitation products and services for city dwellers in Ghana. During a trip to the West African country, the company\u2019s consultants set up interviews with many types of potential customers, such as women, heads of households, teachers, laborers, the elderly, and people with disabilities.<\/p>\n The consultants asked \u201can incredible array of questions,\u201d says Andy Narracott, program coordinator at Water & Sanitation for the Urban Poor.<\/p>\n He says some of the questions were very personal: how much money their household earned, what kind of work they did, how many people lived in their home, did they have a toilet, what sanitation products and services they currently pay for.<\/p>\n One woman they talked to had a question for her interviewers: Why have you come all the way from your country to ask about my toilet?<\/p>\n Mr. Narracott says most nonprofit organizations would have said, \u201cA toilet is good for your health, and we want to help you.\u201d<\/p>\n By contrast, he says, one of the consultants told the woman that they were with Unilever, and they wanted to create a sanitation product people would be happy to buy but that also improves people\u2019s health.<\/p>\n \u201cFrom my perspective, that provides a lot more dignity than a typical [nonprofit]\u00a0 approach,\u201d says Mr. Narracott.<\/p>\n Testing Ideas<\/strong><\/p>\n After gaining an understanding of what customers want, IDEO lays out the options and develops prototypes to be tested.<\/p>\n \u201cIt doesn\u2019t have to be a solution that\u2019s ready to go to market,\u201d says Ms. Martin, of IDEO.org. \u201cInstead it\u2019s something that acts like or looks like the experience that we\u2019re trying to create. We get people\u2019s reactions. We see what works; we see what doesn\u2019t. And we can build on that.\u201d<\/p>\n After several iterations, IDEO developed a portable toilet for the project in Ghana. Water & Sanitation for the Urban Poor is now running a six-month test of a service that rents the toilets and charges a weekly fee for the waste to be removed. The trial started with 20 customers, who got the first month of service free. Two months into the trial, all 20 customers had agreed to pay for the service, and the nonprofit group is adding more customers.<\/p>\n Mr. Narracott says the pilot project is providing valuable financial information his group is using to develop a business plan for the service.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Nurturing Talent<\/strong><\/p>\n IDEO.org has created a fellowship program to spread the company\u2019s design approach in the nonprofit world.<\/p>\n For 11 months, the fellows\u2013five from the nonprofit world and three from IDEO\u2013will work with IDEO.org on nonprofit design projects in areas that focus on agriculture, financial services, health, and other areas.<\/p>\n The idea is that the nonprofit fellows will take their new skills back to the charitable world and that the IDEO fellows will bring a new understanding of the problems nonprofits face back to their work at the company.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re bringing design and the social sector together in a big way,\u201d says Ms. Martin. \u201cWe\u2019re looking at the people who are working on our most intractable challenges and then we\u2019re taking some of the best creative minds in the world and we\u2019re putting them together.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" IDEO.org Fellows Bring Beautiful Design to Humanitarian Efforts November 6, 2011 http:\/\/www.good.is\/post\/ideo-org-fellows-bring-beautiful-design-to-humanitarian-efforts\/ \u201cIn the long run, we hope the fellowship program will inspire the continued sharing and spread of human-centered design,\u201d Martin says. We\u2019re hoping the experiences gained and skills … Continue reading ![\"IDEO](\"http:\/\/philanthropy.com\/blogs\/innovation\/files\/2011\/09\/IMG_82679-200x300.jpg\" "\\"IMG_8267\\"")
<\/a>IDEO helped a nonprofit design an in-home sanitation service in Kumasi, Ghana.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n![\"The](\"http:\/\/philanthropy.com\/blogs\/innovation\/files\/2011\/09\/toliet3-300x200.jpg\" "\\"toliet\\"")
<\/a>The portable toilet IDEO designed for the project<\/p>\n<\/div>\n