Social entrepreneurs draw upon the best thinking from the business and nonprofit worlds to develop and launch innovative strategies to address unmet needs and drive social change. After testing and iterating on models to find the most effective model to meet the needs of beneficiaries, social enterprises can choose between many different strategies to scale their impact to drive more significant change. Find highlights from CASE’s work related to launching and scaling social ventures below, or search our knowledge database for more.
Foundations of Scale | Innovating to Scale | Overcoming Key Scaling Challenges | Case Studies | Interviews with Scaling Leaders
Start here: Foundations of Scale
Article
Scaling Social Impact Foundational article by CASE founders laying out a framework for a larger set of pathways for pursing scale.
Article
Pivoting to Impact: Navigating the Road to Scale What is scaling and why is it so hard? We cut across sectors and geographies to distill lessons for all enterprises and funders seeking impact at scale.
Guide
4 Pathways to Scaling Impact Each pathway can help an enterprise think about its role in the ultimate solution as well as the implications on its operating model, funding, and more.
Video
Impact Explained: Scaling vs. Scaling IMPACT There is a big difference between scaling your organization and scaling your impact, as this video explains.
Video
4 Pathways to Impact at Scale Understand the four main pathways to scale and considerations to pursuing them.
Tool
Scaling Readiness Diagnostic Answer questions in 7 key areas and receive a results guide to your next most important steps to scaling impact.
Innovating to Scale
Video
Innovating to Scaled Impact Consider these best practices before jumping into any innovation to drive impact.
Video
Creating an Innovation Culture to Drive Scale Your people and culture can drive – or deter – innovation to scale.
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Financing New Approaches to Scale Four common strategies to finance the resources required for innovation.
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Using Data to Power Scale The role of data in inquiry, design, testing, and decision-making of innovation.
Download a full set of one-page takeaways from the Innovating to Scale series
Best Practices for Overcoming Key Scaling Challenges
Article
Why We Didn’t Fund Your Scaling Plan A checklist to avoid common problems that funders have identified in evaluating applications.
Report
Financing for Scaled Impact Tips and advice to maximize the impact of external funding and effectively leverage internal options to fuel the scaling journey.
Report
Leveraging Government Partnerships Insights and tactics for effectively leveraging government partnerships to scale impact.
Report
Using Data to Power Scale Tactics for setting a data foundation grounded in equity, the building blocks for a robust system and process, and strategies as you grow, partner, or pursue systems change.
Report
People Matter: Evolving Talent to Drive Impact at Scale Tips for evolving organizational structure, leveraging outside capacity, and maintaining culture through scale.
Find more insights from the Scaling Pathways series, authored by CASE in partnership with the Skoll Foundation, USAID, and Mercy Corps Ventures.
Looking for more resources about navigating scale? Search our knowledge database for scaling.
Case Studies
Case Study
VisionSpring VisionSpring launched — and then shuttered — a retail “hub and spoke” model in Latin America. The scaling experiment led to valuable lessons about knowing when to pivot and preparing to fail.
Case Study
Evidence Action After a successful RCT and pilot, Evidence Action’s scaling efforts led to decreasing impact. It took a step back to focus on behavior change, right-sizing data collection, and improving infrastructure.
Case Study
Imazon Recognizing that they could not solve deforestation alone, Imazon scaled its impact through government partnerships and open source data — rather than growing its organization.
Case Studies
Our Scaling Snapshots are mini case studies of ventures’ scaling journeys, including pathways and lessons learned:
Looking for more case studies? Search our knowledge database for case study
Interviews with Scaling Leaders
Podcast
Elisa Villanueva Beard The CEO of Teach for America talks abou tthe balance of centralization vs. decentralization in scaling a national organization.
Video
Scaling Through Mass Disruption Gregory Rockson, founder of mPharma, shares his tips on scaling through mass disruptions like the COVID-19 pandemic.
Video
Alden Zecha Co-Founder and CFO for Sproxil talks about challenges and lessons learned in scaling a social venture.
For more podcast episodes and videos, visit the CASE in Point podcast page and our CASE Chats video library.
Looking for more resources on launching and scaling social enterprises? Search the CASE Knowledge Database