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‘You Hired me as a Ballerina and Now Want Me to be a Basketball Player’: Hard Truths About Evolving Talent at Scale
Does your talent strategy look the same as it did a year ago? If it does, you're probably doing it wrong – especially if your organization is scaling. According to Kimberly Langsam at CASE at Duke University, a growing organization's talent strategies and support infrastructure must constantly evolve. She explores why talent is one of the key challenges of scale, and shares insights from social entrepreneurs and others featured in a new report from the Scaling Pathways series.
- Categories
- Social Enterprise
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Is Government the Key to Scaling up Graduation Programs? Results From an Impact Evaluation in Latin America
Graduation programs fight poverty by offering participants the tools and resources they need to create a viable livelihood. But while these programs have shown impressive results, they're costly to bring to scale. Tatiana Rincón and Adriana Insaurralde at Fundación Capital explore whether the graduation approach can be rolled out by governments without compromising its impact, based on evidence from a ground-breaking impact assessment.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment
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5 Ways Nonprofits Can Learn (and Copy) from For-Profits to Scale Up
Tough problems in tough places – that’s business as usual for many global nonprofits. As they navigate the challenges of high regulatory risk and ever-changing donor interest, nonprofits typically grow by acquiring more projects – based on how well they delivered previous projects. But businesses mostly fund their growth by reinvesting profits, or by raising external equity or debt. While these two systems are very different, there’s much nonprofits can learn from for-profit businesses as they reach for scale, writes Dhananjay Vaidyanathan Rohini at Alstonia Impact.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
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Designing for Social Good, Not ‘Feel Good’
Designing products for multinational corporations and their affluent target markets is very different from designing products for low-income, rural consumers. Jordan Westerberg, industrial designer with social venture development firm Factor[e], has worked in both of these worlds. He discusses a recent project that redesigned a solar conduction dryer for Indian farmers, and cautions against being drawn to simplistic, feel-good products when designing for social impact.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Social Enterprise, Technology
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What Does ‘Selling Out’ Mean? Four Lessons on Navigating Trade-offs While Scaling Your Social Enterprise
“Selling out” is a common concern for social entrepreneurs, as they strive to balance their ideals with the needs of a growing business. But Amanda West at Mercy Corps Ventures raises an interesting question: Can one person’s “selling out” be another person’s logical business decision? She explores the inevitable compromises that occur when a social business scales up, and shares lessons learned by four prominent enterprises that have scaled their impact.
- Categories
- Social Enterprise
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Scaling a Social Enterprise: How to Get Ready for Take-Off (And Landing)
When it comes to scaling a social enterprise, many believe that "big is beautiful" – and that growing fast is inherently better than going slowly. After all, what entrepreneur wants to delay putting their world-changing innovations into practice? But as Christina Moehrle at Roots of Impact sees it, social entrepreneurs should think twice about their need for speed. She offers three essential tips for aspiring changemakers, based on learnings from their "Scalerator" scaling support program.
- Categories
- Social Enterprise
- Tags
- incubators, scale
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Here’s Why Social Startups in India Fail to Attract VC Funds
Social startups in India haven’t been able to get the spotlight of investors to attract billions of dollars much like regular technology startups. Moreover, the number of social startups pales in comparison to the number of technology startups.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Region
- South Asia
- Tags
- Base of the Pyramid, scale, startups
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Dragons Scale Naturally; Social Enterprises Don’t: Here Are Four Tips That Make It Faster and Easier for Every Entrepreneur
If you’re a social entrepreneur, here's some bad news for you: You weren’t born to scale. According to Rob Shelton at the Miller Center for Social Entrepreneurship, in reviewing 100 enterprises from the past 10 years, the Center found that less than 10% were able to scale successfully. But he also offers some good news: In spite of the odds, you can learn to scale successfully – if you're willing to shift management gears, learn some new things and push beyond your existing model. Shelton shares a straightforward process that can make scaling possible for every entrepreneur.
- Categories
- Social Enterprise
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