Pathways to social impact

In recent years, there has been a growing demand by social entrepreneurs for research that offers a better understanding of how to scale promising social innovations in timely and effective ways. This paper presents data from a large-scale survey of U.S. nonprofit leaders who have experience with or are considering scaling their organizations via branches, affiliates, or both branches, though their motivations for expansion are similar regardless of the expansion strategy they choose. The key challenges faced by branch, affiliate, and plural organizations tend to differ according to the key distinctions among the strategies. The most substantial finding from this research is that some of the anticipated benefits of scale failed to materialize, while other, unanticipated benefits seemed to dominate across all expansion strategies. Economies of scale were often less than anticipated, and tapping into new funding sources tended to be a significant benefit primarily for affiliates. In contrast, the benefits from both brand and organizational learning consistently exceeded expectations across all strategies. Based on our investigations, we offer lessons learned about strategic preferences, motivations, challenges, and benefits of scaling nonprofits via a range of strategies.