Scaling Impact

Introduction

How can we make a greater impact?

Social innovators who set out to solve complex social, economic, or environmental challenges often have one great hope—that if their new approaches turn out to be effective, they can be scaled to a larger level and have an even greater impact. Many want to extend their reach or to develop new offerings to complement their existing efforts. Some may want to expand their impact by changing parts of a system.

In reality, Scaling Impact is far more complex than we thought. The process is rarely a linear enterprise in which changemakers finalize the conditions for scaling in one big push. Instead, it is likely to be a relentless, long-term process of adaptation and change. Scaling requires organizations to be serious about learning from both successes and failures, and to have the capacity to build on those insights moving forward.

Each organization needs to find its own unique strategy to achieve its Scaling Impact goals. Developing and implementing a Scaling Impact strategy is a complex process. It is highly context specific, and can be challenging and time consuming. Scaling Impact often requires organizational changes, including new capacities, skills, and resources, as well as different relationships. It may also necessitate a willingness to let go of particular aspects of existing work and/or embrace an entirely new approach.

Types of scaling

Depending on which resources you consult, there are a variety of Scaling Impact approaches organizations can employ to amplify their impact (either stand alone or in combination). Some of the most prominent of these include:

Scaling out: Scaling out is the expansion of an existing program and/or its replication and adaptation in different contexts so that it reaches more people or regions, resulting in more beneficiaries. Examples of scaling out include:

• An organization replicating a successful school-based program across many different school boards.
• A regional sustainability network that starts similar networks in other communities.

Scaling out can also include developing new programs or activities to improve the depth and/or range of outcomes for the same beneficiaries. For example:

• A youth mental health clinic that expands the variety of support services it offers to provide more holistic care to their patients and generate greater outcomes for them.

Scaling up: Scaling up is influencing a broader system. It often focuses on some of the root causes of problems by directing efforts toward changing the system that created the social or environmental problem. An organization trying to scale up might build on its past program- or organization-level success by working to influence policies, curricula, legislation, regulations, institutions, working relationships and/or the flows of financial resources in order to expand their innovation and/or impact. Scaling up can take many forms. For example:

• An environmental group that has been focused on creating urban green spaces can scale up its impact by working with governments to create carbon pricing mechanisms, or by changing national/provincial regulations on urban planning.

Scaling deep: Changing the “hearts and minds” of people or the organization, system or community (e.g., in terms of narrative, values, beliefs and identities) so that the idea underlying the social innovation is supported and embedded. Scaling deep shifts the cultural DNA by changing widely held societal values and norms. For example:

• An organization that has exclusively provided personal support services for people with disabilities can scale its impact by trying to change cultural ideas about what it means to contribute and participate in society.