Jean Oelwang, CEO of Virgin Unite, argues that nonprofit organizations have a lot to learn from the business practices of the private sector if they wish to maximize their impact.
Ten due diligence practices for would-be funders who are in the process of sizing up a philanthropic opportunity.
So focused on short-term funding for survival, the nonprofit sector is losing its ability to implement innovative solutions to the world’s problems.
At Social Impact Exchange, a forum dedicated to scaling high-impact social programs, investors wanted to know “How will your idea achieve scale?”
An interview with Dr. Madhav Chavan, CEO of Pratham, a nonprofit that provides quality education to underprivileged children of India.
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.
