Innovating for a Healthy Context
Improving the effectiveness of development innovations
Improving the effectiveness of development innovations
There are many reasons why philanthropists still haven’t supported SMEs at the scale we need. They need to get over it; the opportunity to leverage impact is enormous.
Many hurdles stand in the way of successful innovation. The case of Zipline, an autonomous drone delivery platform, demonstrates many of the pitfalls of the dominant modes of development in Africa, along with some potential solutions.
Turning a one-time score into an impact jackpot.
A collection of standout pieces published online about scaling nonprofits, measuring the impact of training, and the challenge of impact investing.
Since 1970, more than 200,000 nonprofits have opened in the U.S., but only 144 have reached $50 million in annual revenue. They got big by doing two things: They raised the bulk of their money from a single type of funder. And just as importantly, these nonprofits created professional organizations that were tailored to the needs of their primary funding sources.
A decade of applying the collective impact approach to address social problems has taught us that equity is central to the work.
How do innovations move from the edges to the core of what an organization does? For maximum impact, innovations must cease to be innovative and become institutionalized and normalized.
Impact evaluations are an important tool for learning about effective solutions to social problems, but they are a good investment only in the right circumstances.
Scaling requires not only fidelity to core processes and programs, but also constant adjustments to local needs and resources.