Garr Reynolds of Presentation Zen tells us all how to think like a designer. All ten of his tips apply to people working in community based organizations — designing solutions to today’s toughest problems.  But the first, particularly, speaks  to our sector: Embrace constraints.  Reynolds writes:

Constraints and limitations are wonderful allies and lead to enhanced creativity and ingenious solutions that without constrains never would have been discovered or created. In the words of T.S. Eliot, “Given total freedom the work is likely to sprawl.” There’s no point complaining about constraints such as time, money, tools, etc. Your problem is what it is. How can you solve it given the resources and time that you have?

It’s tempting, working in the nonprofit field, to either get stopped by the constraints — the lack of money and resources.  It’s also tempting to think only of changing the playing field — advocacy to change the resources available.  Those are both important but so is this more pragmatic approach. I often think of this idea, embracing constraints, as the villanelle approach.  It doesn’t have to be about reducing the quality or elegance of the solution.  In fact, like Elizabeth Bishop’s One Art, it can guide you beautiful solutions.