Giving Compass' Take:

• The Innovation Investment Alliance funded a partnership between the Skoll Foundation and USAID's Global Development Lab, which helps social entrepreneurs and the funders who support them strategize how to scale impact.

•  Andy Narracot, Deputy Director for Global Safe Water at Evidence Action says that "measuring output without looking at impact is a mistake."  How can entrepreneurs and organizations get funders more involved in the process of creating impact so that they can understand the trajectory?

• Read the Bridgespan Group's approach to replicating strategies in order to scale impact.

What does it take to scale social impact?

That’s one of the fundamental questions for social entrepreneurs anywhere. As they seek to create solutions to widespread, seemingly intractable problems, such as poverty and climate change, answering this question is as urgent as ever.

To inform the actions of social entrepreneurs and the strategies of funders who support them, the Innovation Investment Alliance—a funding and learning partnership between the Skoll Foundation and USAID’s Global Development Lab, with support from Mercy Corps—and CASE at Duke University launched the Scaling Pathways series to gather lessons from the frontlines of change.

The series includes Pivoting to Impact, a report that distills critical lessons learned that cut across geographies and sectors and provides information vital to enterprises and funders trying to unlock impact at scale.

Key themes explored in the piece include: securing people and systems critical for scale, incorporating metrics, the importance of adaptation, the value of creative partnerships, and the importance of zooming out of day-to-day operations to take a bird’s eye view of the ecosystem and emerging opportunities.

What should funders look for to fund scale effectively? “Only measuring output without looking at impact is a mistake,” said Andy Narracot, Deputy Director for Global Safe Water at Evidence Action. “Too often it’s assumed that impact is proven, but funders ought to do due diligence that links intervention to desired impact.”

Scaling the impact of global issues is no easy task for the everyday impact investor. However,  by securing people, by implementing metrics, by viewing the day-to-day operations from the big picture in addition to partnership development, the act of scaling impact can be a little less intimidating and a lot more effective.

Read the full article about scaling impact for social enterprises by Gurpreet Singh at Skoll Foundation