When I heard Harvard professor Clay Christensen talk earlier this year about applying the theories of disruptive innovation to the nonprofit world, I was intrigued and a little skeptical.

True, Christensen is a rock star in Silicon Valley with his idea that in order to thrive, companies have to head down paths that scare the bejabbers out of them. They need, at times, to be unorthodox, to cannibalize a product that is working really well for them (Apple (AAPL) iPad) in order to come up with a new product (Apple iPad Mini) that could do even better.

But how, I wondered, does all that translate to housing the homeless, feeding the hungry, finding jobs for the jobless, health care for the uninsured and on and on? My thinking, it turns out, was too narrow -- to narrow to be disruptive.

Don't think like a nonprofit, Greg Kepferle, CEO of Catholic Charities of Santa Clara County, was telling me the other day. Think like an entrepreneur. Think like a Silicon Valley corporation.

"Put up the pirate flag in that little section of your office," Kepferle continues, evoking Apple and the birth of the Macintosh. "And maybe it's only 1 percent or 10 percent of your operation, and they're going to do the skunk works."

Kepferle is a good one to ask about this disruptive innovation stuff.

He's listened to Christensen, who came to San Jose in January. The disruption evangelist was here to promote a Health Trust initiative to provide grants for nonprofits presenting the best ideas to blow holes in the way things have always been done.

And just recently Catholic Charities snagged two of the grants, worth $150,000. One initiative will explore funding charitable programs on a venture capital model. Solving social problems saves money. Why not return some of it to those who invest in social problem-solvers. The other program will help low-income women launch their own businesses offering Zumba classes.

I know what you're thinking: Investors backing charities? A Zumba revolution to put people to work?

Disruptive. Remember?

The Catholic Charities' proposals were among 20 that the Health Trust, a foundation based in San Jose, received in response to its call for ideas to help nonprofits operate more cheaply and efficiently.

"If we're going to be able to respond to the growing needs of Silicon Valley, then we need to take risks to explore new ways of meeting those needs," says Health Trust CEO Fred Ferrer.

In addition to the Catholic Charities' proposals, the Health Trust this month gave the go ahead and nearly $278,000 to three other ideas, including:

A proposal from the Law Foundation of Silicon Valley to reach many more low-income clients by moving some services to the Web. Demand far outstrips supply for the foundation's Health Legal Services division and if lawyers could figure out how to answer questions and offer advice online, fewer who need help would fall through the cracks.

A push by the Greenbelt Alliance to better engage neighborhoods facing land-use questions by bringing people together through the Web and mobile applications.

The Community Technology Alliance's proposal to provide mobile phone service to the homeless and poor. By definition the homeless are hard to reach if you're a prospective employer, a health-care provider or a social worker. Having a reliable phone number and inbox could go a long way to changing that.

The money that the Health Trust is putting up will go primarily to figuring out whether any of these ideas are actually feasible. But the thing is, they make sense in theory, which has me much less skeptical. Will all these ideas work? I doubt it. Even some of those who are setting out to try them, have some doubts. But the idea is to try them.

"The great thing about disruptive innovation, is with this model you can kind of follow your gut and test things out," says Hilary Armstrong, a supervising attorney with the Law Foundation. And if it doesn't work?

"There is room for course correcting,'' Armstrong says. "You try one thing and if it doesn't work, it's not the end of the world. This is rapid cycling."

And who knows at this point just where the initial ideas will lead? Take Zumba, the idea that initially struck me as the least ambitious. What I was failing to see was that sometimes Zumba isn't just Zumba. Sure, Catholic Charities intends to train low-income women as certified instructors of the frenetic form of dance/exercise.

But the training will also include classes in business basics -- marketing, banking, etc. And if the Zumba thing doesn't work out, what's to stop a woman from using her know-how to launch a different business -- a restaurant, a retail outlet, an eBay (EBAY) store?

"You never know where this can take them," says America Aguirre, the Catholic Charities program director who oversees the Zumba initiative. "We're training them to be their own entrepreneurs."

So let's see: This disruptive innovation for nonprofits allows charities to engage in course correcting and rapid cycling while encouraging entrepreneurship. Maybe the idea is a better fit for Silicon Valley than I ever imagined.

Contact Mike Cassidy at mcassidy@mercurynews.com or 408-920-5536. Follow him at Twitter.com/mikecassidy.