Growing to Scale

A good blog post on the issue—which has had an impact on many nonprofits in the past several years—from Stanford Social Innovation Review.

An excerpt.

“I was recently invited to attend the Social Impact Exchange Conference on Scaling held in New York City and thought the conference was a great experience. I actually was most in awe of the collection of people attending. I regard them so highly that I think on several occasions someone helped me remove my jaw from the floor and assisted me in grabbing my composure.

“In any sense, I noticed that the conference targeted several themes, including innovation, rethinking investment, and of course, scaling. Many times I heard different uses or versions of the word “new”. Often it was cast as a need for new directions in both philanthropy and the nonprofit sector. Sometimes it was cast as a plea to get rid of “the old and replace it with the new”. What I did not hear much of, but think it is important to consider, is the possibility of reconfiguring or even “re-propelling” organizations that have much longer histories. As you may know from reading my previous posts, I often draw comparisons between the nonprofit sector and popular culture. As I reflected on the SIE Scaling Conference, the movie Cocoon came to my mind. I promise I won’t reference Steve Guttenberg.

“If you don’t know or remember the movie, Cocoon is a movie about a swimming pool that houses the cocoons of aliens. Three older men start swimming in the pool and begin to obtain renewed energy, causing the older gentleman to feel much stronger. In thinking about this plot and some of the phraseology I heard at the conference, I wondered if it is possible to rethink our language and talk about how we can renew older organizations that some have labeled as dead or have forgotten about in the rush to recognize and highlight newer efforts.”