A New Look at Strategic Pathways for Solving Social Problems at Scale

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  Pathways to Social Impact

  J. Gregory Dees, Beth Battle Anderson, Jane Wei-Skillern · CASE at Duke University · 2002 (revised as "Scaling Social Impact", SSIR 2004)

  A 14-page working paper from Duke's Center for the Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship, later revised for Stanford Social Innovation Review as "Scaling Social Impact". It asks what you are spreading (a programme, an organisation or a set of principles) and how: dissemination, loose to tight affiliation, or branching. Each option is tested against five R's: readiness, receptivity, resources, risk and return. Leaders and funders use its questions to pick a scaling path, including the option to wait.

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  Three Questions for Nonprofits That Want to Solve Social Problems at Scale

  Marina Fisher, Alyson Zandt, Angie Estevez Prada, Paola Jimenez-Read, Bradley Seeman · The Bridgespan Group · 2025

  A free Bridgespan article for nonprofit and NGO leaders who want impact at scale without building an ever larger organisation. Drawing on advisory work and interviews with 11 organisations, it poses three questions: what is the highest-impact role your organisation can play, what capabilities and structures that role needs, and how you will learn and adapt as conditions change. Teams use it to frame a scaling strategy before choosing tactics.

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• 2.5C207

  Big Enough. Simple Enough. Cheap Enough.

  Kevin Starr · Stanford Social Innovation Review · 2019

  A short article by Kevin Starr of the Mulago Foundation on how to judge whether a solution can scale. Real scale usually depends on a "doer" and a "payer" other than the founding organisation, often government. Starr tests each model three ways: is the market big enough, is it simple enough for the doer to deliver, and is it cheap enough for the payer, benchmarked against what payers already spend. Founders use it to redesign models before scaling.

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• 2.5C208

  Scaling Out, Scaling Up, Scaling Deep

  Darcy Riddell, Michele-Lee Moore · J.W. McConnell Family Foundation; Tamarack Institute · 2015

  A free report prepared for the McConnell Foundation and Tamarack Institute, drawn from a decade of the foundation's Applied Dissemination grants and peer learning group. It sets out three ways to spread a social innovation: scaling out to more people and places, scaling up into policy and law, and scaling deep into culture, values and relationships. It shares lessons and strategies from grantees, plus what made the peer learning process work. Teams use it to plan beyond simple replication.

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  Scaling Pathways: Pivoting to Impact

  Erin Worsham, Catherine Clark, Robyn Fehrman · CASE at Duke University · 2017

  The opening report in the free Scaling Pathways series. It follows three organisations, Imazon, Evidence Action and VisionSpring, through their scaling journeys: the unit they scaled, the pathways they chose and how they changed course. It then names five common roadblocks, such as scaling without the right people and systems or without metrics and trip wires, with advice for leaders and funders. Teams use it to prepare for scale and expect pivots.

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  How to Build an Organisational Development Plan

  The Bridgespan Group · 2022

  A toolkit for Indian NGOs and their funders that takes an organisation from diagnosis to an OD plan. The plan document walks users through 4 steps to find where the NGO falls short and plan improvements. A companion Organisational Development Assessment Guide covers 13 capabilities and helps teams choose a short list to work on first. Bridgespan built it with 5 Indian intermediaries as part of Pay-What-It-Takes India. It is licensed CC BY 4.0.

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• 1.5C215

  Growth of Youth-Serving Organizations

  The Bridgespan Group · 2005

  A free study by Bridgespan, commissioned by the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation, of 20 US youth-serving nonprofits that grew substantially. It looks at how they grew, what growth did to their finances, how their structures changed, including adding a chief operating officer, more formal systems and new board roles, and what helped or held them back. It comes as a white paper, executive summary and 20 case studies that leaders and funders use to plan for growth.

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  Creating the COO Position

  The Bridgespan Group · 2016, updated 2026

  A free Bridgespan article on when and why nonprofits add a chief operating officer, drawn from a survey of COOs and interviews with COOs and executive directors. It covers the usual triggers, such as a chief executive stretched by a growing staff or a growth plan to deliver, the worries executive directors have about sharing control, and how organisations managed the transition. It links to Bridgespan's wider set of COO resources, including sample job descriptions.

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