The Joy of Scaling

The chief aim of the Developmental Education Initiative is to identify the most effective developmental education programming and deliver them to more of the community college students who need them—or find ways for most entering students to bypass those courses all together. In other words, what resources and practices are essential to take something that works to scale? There are a lot of different organizations exploring an apparently elusive definition of “scale”—the feds, foundations, and Fuqua School of Business at Duke University, among many others.  And though there isn’t one definition that will suit every situation, the imperative is undeniable: organizations in the business of social benefit must develop the capacity to expand the reach of their effective programs. Large-scale problems won’t be solved by small-scale programs. A program is not good enough for what we’ve been asked to do (i.e., graduate 5 million more students and double the number of adults with postsecondary credentials). Though the term is certainly more popular these days, the concept is not new; scaling up is an essential part of continuous improvement processes and systems-change because a solution that is not sustainable and available to most of those who need it is not a solution. The required organizational change can be disruptive and likely will necessitate new priorities for the institution.

There are certainly barriers to expanding something that has value. Politics, resources, traditions—the obstacles you always face moving anything new through a human system, especially when that system is under stress. Over the next several weeks, Accelerating Achievement will tackle these obstacles, working step-by-step through a scaling model. In “Scaling Social Entrepreneurial Impact,” Paul Bloom and Aaron Chatterji present a conceptual framework of seven organizational capacities that support successful scaling of a social enterprise, represented by the acronym SCALERS: Staffing, Communicating, Alliance-building, Lobbying, Earnings Generation, Replicating Impact, and Stimulating Market Forces. Given the differences between a typical nonprofit or private sector venture and public institutions, MDC has translated the model for application at community colleges. Here are Bloom & Chatterji’s original definitions of each capacity and our definitions adapted to community colleges:

Each capacity, or driver, can influence the expansion process, though some may be more important than others in any particular situation. The drivers also overlap and interplay during the design and execution of a scaling strategy.  Each Wednesday for the next seven weeks, we’ll dive into one of these drivers, exploring this overlap and interplay, teasing out how the model might play out in the community college. Over the coming weeks, please add your observations and experience to the mix. We’d like to hear about efforts to expand effective programs that have been successful, as well as what you’ve learned from scaling attempts that didn’t go as planned. We hope you’ll join us! 

Abby Parcell is MDC's Program Manager for the Developmental Education Initiative.