Scale is Not the Enemy -- Part I

Youth Today’s excellent June cover story entitled, “Growing Ambitions” describes how several national youth-serving organizations are pursuing “…market-penetration plans with the zeal of Coca-Cola and Starbucks.” As reasons, the article cites, “…a rise in government funding of after-school programs, an increasing propensity among foundations to fund brand names like the YMCA, and a changing organizational culture in which top executives bring more of a business perspective to the nonprofit world.”

The central questions raised by the article are whether local unaffiliated organizations will be able to compete with the dynamics fueling this growth and, if not, whether innovation will suffer. Clearly the mantra is that big is better. Scale is the holy grail.

Which, of course, makes it all so easy to bash. Arguments against scale in the nonprofit sector claim that it’s not right for every organization or idea, that it squashes local leadership, that our sector shouldn’t treat folks like widgets to be manipulated with the likes of any market penetration plan. I’d argue that, since we also romanticize the community agency and its leaders who make fishes from loaves every day, it’s hard to stomach national organizations which often seem to have so many more resources.

Obviously scale isn’t right for every program (or even more than a minority.) Obviously local leadership proportionately loses its clout when diluted by regional and national constituent groups. And there is obviously a difference between treating folks like human beings and treating them like growth indicators. But that doesn’t make the instinct to scale an enemy.

I’m not arguing for all scale, all the time, but tomorrow I will cite two personal examples of why I believe trends described by the Youth Today article point the way to greater dollar-per-dollar impact.

P.S. Lest there be any confusion, I hold these opinions despite the fact that I detest Hummers and the way that Wal-Mart systematically shortchanges its workers.

Susan Herr

Comments

Thanks for pointing out the article and your comments. I was actually more taken by the sidebar that raises cautions about the potential downside of going to scale by pushing out a modified -- or light touch -- version of a program that all the evidence suggests only works to produce results when done by the book. Research also has shown that when a mentoring program works, for instance, it works because the model is followed with fidelity in any places where it is replicated. Similarly, not only can programs fail to deliver when shortcuts are taken, but kids can be harmed as well.

Obviously we need scale, especially to get those programs that work in more places where they can do more good. But we also have to guard against spreading too thinly.

Also for more "real life" adventures of what it's like for youth serving organizations to attempt to go to scale, readers might enjoy this Bridgespan report.

Despite my best efforts, the system stripped the url that links to the Bridgespan report I cited in my earlier comment about youth serving organizations that have gone to scale. Here it is, less elegantly, but should work: http://www.emcf.org/pdf/growthstudy_fullreport.pdf If not, email me, and I'll email you the pdf.

Thank you for this. I believe that scale is a good thing if motivated not by a desire for power, but a desire for addressing the core purpose of an organizations. For youth programs, the advantage to scale is not just that we have more Boy Scouts or Camp Fire USA clubs... it is that fewer kids are home alone, lacking the adult supervision and guidance necessary to achieve their highest potential.

In Dallas, we have nearly 100,000 kids who are home alone each day after school. This is a travesty. Children cannot thrive if only exposed to school (test-driven academia) and solitude. From my perspective, if an organization can go out there and replicate a successful out-of-school program that helps decrease the number of latchkey children, this is a major win for our community!

Jeremy Gregg

Editor, The Raiser's Razor

http://theraiser.blogspot.com