Growing To Scale

It is a dilemma any successful small nonprofit encounters—whether to grow or stay small—and this article from the Foundation Center, examines the issue.

An excerpt.

“For most, the concept of going to scale invokes a sense of the large, the systemic, the external. It brings to mind replication, expansion and spread — like tentacles, ever-reaching, ever-growing. But taking a single project, or a concept, and trying to make it "work" for everyone leads to forced, false constructs and a single vision of "success" or "the good life." It negates the beauty of the diversity of human existence.

“Instead, we at the Global Youth Leadership Collaborative (GC) invite a different perspective on scale — inviting a billion flowers to bloom into many possibilities of human life. As the Zapatistas say, "we want a world that embraces many worlds." Going to scale for us means linking the personal, the interpersonal, and the systemic levels of change. We have to look at who we are as people today, what is happening in our relationships, and what is happening in the communities and world we live in, then try to bring each level into alignment with our deepest values.

“The GC formed about three years ago. We are a group of fifteen activists from thirteen countries (Peru, Brazil, Bolivia, Egypt, Palestine, Lebanon, India, Thailand, Senegal, Kenya, Aotearoa/New Zealand, Canada, and the United States). We work on environmental justice, building learning communities, healthy food systems, indigenous sovereignty, cultural articulation, sustainability, health and healing, and more. Our community grew out of the World Youth Leadership Jams, events co-organized by YES! and a number of other organizations. Jams pull together a diverse community for a week based on community building, personal reflection, and commitment to social change.

“Together, we at the GC administer a flow fund, in which a pool of money is divided up equally among all our members, who are connected deeply to the work and context of communities. We believe people on the ground understand the needs of our times and are able to use our rootedness and nimbleness to effect transformative change. We have hosted many different gatherings for young activists in our regions and countries, supported media projects that link diverse and divided communities, and conducted numerous other efforts. We believe in getting a "big bang for the buck," which can happen only when resources are in the right hands.”