Scalability

One strategy used by several development initiatives to become more self-sustainable in the long term is to choose the right means and mechanisms to scale their projects.

Scaling a project up means growing it so that it reaches different communities or regions, or so that its impact also reaches future generations. Initiatives scale their projects up in many ways: some devote their resources and efforts to strengthening their capacity to work with more and more populations, while others design and test models that can be used in different contexts and collaborate with other actors to replicate them. 

In any case, scalability processes help a project’s long-term self-sustainability because these are usually accompanied by new actors and support that allow the initiative’s impact to be multiplied for the benefit of many more people.

The appropriate scalability strategies for each project work on a case-by-case basis, and often depend on the role the initiative plays in the solution of problems (network orchestrator, creator of demonstration models, incubator, etc.), as well as on its institutional profile (NGO, social enterprise, etc.). Initiatives that work as creators of demonstration models, for example, find it very useful to clearly systematize the development model they are using in order to help others replicate and adapt it to different contexts (which often means being clear about the objectives, resources and working methods that may be needed to carry this out). Network orchestrators, on the other hand, find it useful to make the most of their members’ contacts and support to take their projects to new places and development areas. Social enterprises often scale up using the same model franchises use, and so on. 

Some initiatives make use of pilot projects to experiment with development models on a small scale before scaling up their impact. Other development projects try to take root in their beneficiary communities and grow in the long term by promoting the creation and strengthening of local leaders and organizations, as well as by setting up entrepreneurship programs in the area. And others scale up by providing consultancies, disseminating their ways of working through the internet or delegating their projects to initiatives more capable of scaling them up, such as the State or other organizations.