Except in both cases, many people would argue that social value was lost! So for the social sector it seems we need to understand both what can scale AND what should scale and not assume that just because we can, we should.

Nathaniel’s post focuses on spreading technology. That seems more open to scaling than the kinds of relationship-based interventions discussed in the Alliance article, which encourages propogation and adaption rather than scaling.

This seems to me an obvious dichotomy with for-profit equivalents: big technological innovations like vaccines and cell phones have spread much faster and farther than other types of products and services. Univerisites and fancy restaurants, for example, seem to be more frequently be “propgated” and “diffused” rather than scaled up.

What’s interesting, then, is that NFP is cited by all as a sucessful example but it’s a model where success would seem to be built on relationships. I would hazard a guess that the challenges of scaling NFP were mitigated by working within a profession, nursing, that has established ethics, culture, and knowledge. In this way, they could design a training which could be replicated with a reasonably high degree of fidelity and, ultimately, success. It might have involved changing the way nurses work but they were working with a consistent baseline.

So that brings my list of things with the potential to scale up to two so far: technology changes and progams that work in concert with an established profession’s framework. I’m sure there are more out there…

http://delicious.com/SSE/scale

Tony, I just checked out your post. I guess the point is that we want to scale the impact, not always the organization. Planning for how to scale impact is certainly an important early planning step to take.

Nathaniel, I think your questions about replication and Father Boyle’s model are extremely relevant and point to an underlying problem with the diffusion of social innovation (particularly nonprofit solutions). If Father Boyle’s not replicating and other funders aren’t copying the model – then the impact of the organization, while it might be great in Los Angeles, is inherently limited. While I agree with Nick there has been some fetishization of the term scale, I think scale has to be consciously considered in the design of extremely successful social innovations and that without it, social innovations are often less effective than they potentially could be.

I’ve posted a much lengthier response on my blog and would love to have any thoughts/reactions:

http://tonyjwang.wordpress.com/2009/04/15/the-business-model-of-change-is-important/

First up, many social entrepreneurs (like many entrepreneurs) start organisations that are addressing a local need, fit-to purpose to that locality, and have neither the wish nor willing to scale in any sense.

For those that do, the spectrum of ’scaling’ (in its broadest sense) includes everything from open-source propagation through licensing / franchising on to centralised command and control. Check out the Young Foundation’s In and Out of Sync report on this.

And, as ever, it should be about the quality of what’s delivered, measuring the impact of it, operating transparently and accountably, and communicating all of that effectively. Regardless of turnover, number of employees, or number of locations operated in.

btw, this is not an anti-scaling rant (!): we’re replicating as a franchise at the moment in the UK and overseas!

I’ve put in a request to see if we can get Father Boyle’s comments here. But I don’t know him personally.

Seriously though, I think the important question this brings up is how is someone like Father Boyle supported? Are there funders who leverage their resources to help open source the model? Are resources made available for his staff to travel to other places on a consultation basis? Are, on the other hand, their funders *only* interested if he brings it to other cities?

It’s not just how we intellectually value things but how we actually reward behavior that shifts things.