Notes
1 Peter Kim and Jeffrey Bradach, “Why More Nonprofits Are Getting Bigger,” Stanford Social Innovation Review, Spring 2012.
2 Dalberg Global Development Advisors, analysis of data from the Internal Revenue
Service Exempt Organizations Business Master File (BMF), based on IRS Form 990
filings within 24 months of the October 2013 BMF release date, accessed via the Urban
Institute’s National Center for Charitable Statistics, http://nccsdataweb.urban.org
3 William Foster and Gail Fine, “How Nonprofits Get Really Big,” Stanford Social
Innovation Review, Spring 2007.
4 We assembled this consolidated portfolio by combining the portfolios of four leading
nonprofit funders: Big Bang Philanthropy, Draper Richards Kaplan, Mulago
Foundation, and the Skoll Foundation. To gather these data, we drew on IRS Form
990 documents, annual reports, and direct communication with specific nonprofit organizations.
5 Jeffrey L. Bradach, “Going to Scale,” Stanford Social Innovation Review, Spring 2003.
6 Email exchange with Rich Leimsider, January 19, 2014.
7 Ann Goggins Gregory and Don Howard, “The Nonprofit Starvation Cycle,” Stanford Social Innovation Review, Fall 2009.
8 The quoted impact statements of the Harlem Children’s Zone and Habitat for
Humanity appear in Susan Colby, Nan Stone, and Paul Carttar, “Zeroing In on
Impact,” Stanford Social Innovation Review, Fall 2004.
9 Jeffrey Bradach and Abe Grindle, “Transformative Scale: The Future of Growing What Works,”
Stanford Social Innovation Review, Spring 2014; Louis C. Boorstin, “To Scale Impact, Funders Must Understand
the Systems in Which Grantees Operate,” Arabella Advisors website, December 9, 2013; Elliott Berger, “Partnering to Scale Impact,” Arabella Advisors website, July 23, 2013; Heather McLeod Grant
and Leslie R. Crutchfield, “Creating High-Impact Nonprofits,” Stanford Social Innovation Review, Fall 2007.
10 Ellen Berg, “Kindergarten,” in Paula S. Fass, ed., Encyclopedia of Children and Childhood:
In History and Society, Farmington Hills, Mich.: Gale, 2003, posted online in
2008.
11 Prepared text of the commencement address delivered by Steve Jobs at Stanford
University on June 12, 2005, Stanford Report.
12 Dalberg Global Development Advisors, “Catalyzing Smallholder Agricultural Finance,”
2012.
Alice Gugelev is director of the
GDI Social
Enterprise Accelerator, a project of the
Global Development Incubator, an entity that supports
organizations and initiatives that have the
potential to create large-scale social change.
Previously, she was a consultant at
Bain & Company and the
Bridgespan Group. She is
also the founder of the
Muskoka Foundation.
Andrew Stern is executive director of the
Global Development Incubator and a former
partner at
Dalberg Global Development Advisors.
He is also a director and former co-chair
of the board at
mothers2mothers.
The authors would like to thank several
colleagues
who provided constructive feedback
on earlier drafts of this article: Robert
Fabricant, Matt Frazier, Chloe Holderness, Rich
Leimsider, Beth Shiferaw, and Annie Simonds.
The authors also wish to thank colleagues
from Dalberg Global Development Advisors,
including Bhavana Chilukuri and Sneha Sheth,
who conducted research and analysis on the
nonprofit sector for the article, and Jennifer
Mickel and Sara Wallace, who provided
editorial
assistance.