Giving Compass' Take:

• Scaling a program in partnership with governments can take years. Here are some insights from eGovernments Foundation's experience over 15 years in India.

• What can we learn in the US from this model? One main theme is the willingness to change mindsets.

• Here's more about funding and scaling innovations for the Global Goals.

When Nandan Nilekani and Srikanth Nadhamuni started eGovernments Foundation in 2003, their focus was to use technology to improve urban governance: to decrease the friction in transactions involving the government, improve transparency in the system, and increase the efficiency with which services were delivered to citizens.

15 years ago, egovernance was not a term that people knew or understood; but the founders believed that technology could help local and state governments achieve the above goals. Since then our journey to scale — 450 cities, six state governments and four crore citizens—has been winding and uneven, and dotted with challenges and learnings. We’ve had to change our approach, and pivot our business model several times, so that we could stay true to our original goal of improving urban governance.

Based on those 15 years, here are some lessons on how to scale while working with the government:

  1. In the beginning, go for depth not breadth
  2. Applying for government RFPs doesn’t work for nonprofits
  3. You need political will to scale
  4. Ask yourself: Will the change you are driving make people’s lives easier?
  5. Make the solutions open source
  6. Align yourself to government sector incentives
  7. Simplify what you are offering; don’t build monolithic solutions
  8. Work with the government to help them leverage their own capabilities
  9. Change your mindset
  10. As your organization strategy evolves, your team will also need to evolve

Read the full article about India's lessons on scaling by Gautham Ravichander and Viraj Tyagi at India Development Review.