Scaling
Four Mindsets That Accelerate Nonprofit Growth
A reflection on how a set of strategies related to target-setting, financial modeling, program measurement, and organizational culture helped one organization reach a major milestone.
Daunting social problems need scalable solutions. Here’s how to know if you’ve got one.
A reflection on how a set of strategies related to target-setting, financial modeling, program measurement, and organizational culture helped one organization reach a major milestone.
When nonprofits try to plan for scale, systems change, and sustainability at the same time, they can find the expectations for achieving each at odds with each other. The answer is a flexible approach that focuses on the mission.
An excerpt from Scaling Altruism on creating a business plan for nonprofit growth
An excerpt from Scaling Up Development Impact on scaling through government
Enabling people to move for opportunity should be an urgent priority for funders and social innovators who want to make a difference in global inequality.
Without a clear understanding of the gaps in the market, it is difficult for impact investors to develop sound strategies to fill them.
An excerpt from Fragile Neighborhoods on hyperlocal change
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.