The Social impact Exchange will be rolling out a series of essays representing reflections from 13 of the more than 400 participants at the Social Impact Exchange‘s 2013 Conference on Scaling Impact.
Over the last 10 years our sector has made immense progress in its efforts to take successful innovations and scale them broadly. Scaling impact is now a critical discussion at many foundations and among philanthropists, and we have many initiatives that have gone beyond demonstrations and are serving an increasing number of individuals.
Nevertheless, philanthropy as currently organized does not consistently enable those nonprofits with the most demonstrated impact to achieve the level of scale needed to help hundreds of thousands or even millions of people. Capturing this progress and momentum and turning it into more systematic value for large numbers of individuals will require establishment of an enduring system that can scale the impact of hundreds of effective interventions on an annual basis. Our field has not yet accomplished this. The urgency to do so is borne out of the fact that our toughest social problems continue to overwhelm our solutions.
The Exchange’s essay series represents reflections from 13 of the more than 400 participants at the SocialImpact Exchange‘s 2013 Conference on Scaling Impact. Essayists share their comments about the conference sessions and overarching theme of creating a system of cross-sector collaboration among philanthropy, government, and business. Together, the authors weave a story that speaks to accelerating progress on scaling-up social solutions that work.
In the first three essays of the series, Lisa Jackson, managing partner at New Profit, writes about Why Should We Collaborate? – articulating four key questions to ask before embarking on the journey. Meghan Duffy, manager of special initiatives at GEO, shares her thinking on How Grantmakers Can Build and Sustain Strong Collaborations. Andrea E. McGrath, consultant and partner at Connecting Capital, reflects on a conversation among three leaders in the Social Impact Bond and impact investing space in Multi-Sector Collaboration in Impact Investing.
See links to all three essays below: