Giving Compass' Take:

• Devex reports on Kathleen Kelly Janus' book, Social Startup Success, which outlines five strategies that new nonprofits can employ to hit the ground running.

• Would these strategies work for startup and long-standing NGOs alike? Advice such as "measuring impact" and "framing failures" to learn certainly appear to be universal.

• For startups looking for fundraising advice, click here.

This week, delegates of the Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship are gathered for their annual meeting in Oxford; and one of the big questions that social entrepreneurs bring each year is how they can scale their impact.

For the past five years, Kathleen Kelly Janus, author of Social Startup Success, has traveled across the United States to visit founders and funders, and capture their answers to that question.

“The power of proximity is what allows an idea to get off the ground or not,” she told Devex in Oxford on Wednesday.

In each of the five chapters of the book — which deal with testing ideas; measuring impact; funding experimentation; leading collaboratively; and telling compelling stories — many of the examples she highlights work well because the nonprofits involved are close to the problems they aim to solve ...

The book identifies five key strategies for success. The first is testing ideas by engaging stakeholder, and framing failures as learnings. The second is measuring impact, tracking outcomes, and leveraging that data. The third is experimenting to find an effective funding model that is true to your goals.

Kiva, the San Francisco-based crowdfunding platform, serves as the example for the fourth strategy: leading collaboratively. The organization allows employees to manage their own success metrics, an example of creating an environment where people feel empowered and appreciated.

The fifth strategy is to tell compelling stories to share the work that you’re doing. One example Janus points to is Room to Read, another San Francisco-based organization focused on improving literacy, which has found a way to get others to raise money on their behalf by connecting donors with the individuals their money is supporting.

Read the full article about the secrets to nonprofit startup success by Catherine Cheney at Devex International Development