How can nonprofits and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) help far more people while keeping their own organizations at a sustainable size? In 2014, Bridgespan Group authors Jeffrey Bradach and Abe Grindle explored this question in “Transformative Scale: The Future of Growing What Works.” They examined pathways to deliver impact at a scale that truly meets significant social needs.
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A decade later, we take another look at pathways for solving social problems at scale (shared below). To do so, we tapped into Bridgespan team members’ experience working with nonprofits and NGOs in the United States, Asia, and Africa to develop scalable strategies to address social problems. We also examined the strategies of approximately 80 organizations and interviewed the leaders of 11 of these organizations on their journeys to scale their impact.
This article provides an updated guide to the pathways, or core strategy components, that nonprofits and NGOs use to deliver outsized impact on social problems.
