Who says innovation must be difficult for your association? While game-changing breakthrough technologies and new scientific discoveries tend to hog media headlines, it bears remembering this: Evolutionary changes (slight shifts in business strategy or thinking) can often be every bit as powerful as revolutionary advancements when it comes to engaging and growing your membership. All too often, at the pace today’s market moves, and scale on which market leaders operate, we often forget that all it takes for organizations to get ahead is just a minor shift in tactics or perspective.

For example, when L&T General Insurance—a full-service health, property, and casualty insurance provider—wanted to find a way to serve the hugely diverse and hugely scattered Indian market, it took a contrarian approach. Instead of applying a Western business model and attempting to install branches in every remote town and village and hoping customers would come to it, it equipped its insurance agents with smartphones and tablets that were preinstalled with a suite of online, cloud-based apps capable of issuing policies and processing claims on the spot. This allowed agents to go to customers instead. In less than two years, it built a $28 million business that had issued more than 100,000 policies.

Then there’s medical device leader Medtronic. When it wanted to expand its already successful business throughout Western Europe and beyond, it didn’t double-down on cutting-edge devices. Rather, it reinvented its business model, expanding its offerings to include services and establishing new business units that partnered to put owned-and-operated labs inside hospitals.

Not only has Medtronic increased its business, but it’s also provided partners with significant improvements in customer service and cost-savings by doing so.

We often forget that all it takes for organizations to get ahead is just a minor shift in tactics or perspective.

What about when French telecom giant Orange wanted to double the size of its innovation initiatives, but didn’t want to invest millions in R&D or hordes of high-priced workers? It decided to outsource the entire process and offered APIs—plug-and-play backend software solutions—both to internal employees and external developers so that they could create new uses for Orange’s technologies. Using one of these solutions, the company has been able to seamlessly integrate social and second-screen experiences from hundreds of film and TV companies into many of its services in under a year.

Another example comes from Newell Rubbermaid’s Contigo brand, which wanted to find a way to differentiate its products in the crowded market for portable containers and cups. It didn’t invest a fortune into dozens of product roll-outs, attempting to guess what working professionals on the go would want; it studied today’s busiest travel sites, where commuters tended to congregate, and discovered that passengers were constantly wiping off their mugs’ mouth guards on napkins, sleeves, and handkerchiefs. Because of this, it introduced a new line of travel mugs with special covers designed to keep out dirt.

And when MasterCard needed a new idea for a mobile payment app, guess what it did? It put the call out to employees at Innovation Express, a global series of hackathon events where business people, designers, and software developers team up to create new business plans and products in record time. Two days later, Qkr—which lets you order food from your seat at a stadium or preorder school lunches for children right from your pocket without ever setting foot in a cafeteria—was born.

So, what do all these examples mean for nonprofit organizations? As an association executive, ask yourself: What kinds of innovative new solutions could the organization produce if it made even the simplest changes? And what kinds of simple shifts in positioning and messaging could we make in outreach efforts to help give them a fresh shot of excitement and relevance?

While it’s not always obvious to the casual observer, innovation is far easier than you think. All it takes to successfully steer around a challenge, or overcome a problem, is a greater sense of perspective and a greater willingness to be more creative with how you apply the tools at-hand.