Strategies to Scale Up Social Programs

Commissioned by the Wallace Foundation, Strategies to Scale Up Social Programs: Pathways, Partnerships and Fidelity explores the question of how to scale up social programs. Looking at how 45 effective nonprofits succeeded in extending their reach by working in partnership with others, the study analyzes the choices the programs made along the way, offering insights into how partnerships can help bring sound programming to more people. The programs featured in the study—in the fields of health, education and youth development—are tackling some of society’s most serious problems, ranging from teen pregnancy to hunger to climate change. The report found that what they had in common in their expansion-by-partnership work was a trio of strategic questions: how to grow, whom to partner with, and what degree of faithfulness to the original program to demand.