You're currently viewing:
Special features
VisionSpring and BRAC: scale through partnership
VisionSpring’s founding idea is that putting local women in business could be a scalable, sustainable way to bring affordable glasses to the millions of impoverished people across the developing world in need of eyecare. Its …
Life in the old model yet?
When it comes to scaling up a programme, is the classic foundation model of piloting initiatives then persuading government to adopt them an outmoded one? Not if the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation is anything to …
Femina HIP – 10 years to reach 10 million
Femina HIP, the citizen media initiative, started as a small project in Tanzania in 1999. By 2010, Femina had become the country’s biggest ‘citizen’ media platform, and a significant shaper of contemporary culture and values, …
Tackling the Agent Orange legacy in Vietnam
Every war leaves behind deep scars, on the bodies and minds of soldiers and civilians alike, and on the lands that were turned into battlefields. In the case of the Vietnam War, few scars have …
Sustainable public transport for all
Founded in 2001, with an initial investment from the Shell Foundation, EMBARQ – the World Resources Institute Center for Sustainable Transport aims to catalyse environmentally and financially sustainable solutions to pollution, traffic congestion and other …
Reflections on the meaning of ‘scale’
As I look back over 20-plus years of work with social entrepreneurs and their organizations, I often wonder where I got sidetracked into thinking that success meant the entrepreneur scaling up his or her venture …
Scaling Social Impact: New thinking
How do you scale up an innovative and effective local drug rehabilitation programme or sustainable agriculture venture? This topic was the focus of two conferences organized by Duke University’s Center for the Advancement of Social …
Making metrics work for small grantmakers
The difficulty and expense of measuring the impact of small grants is often seen as a drawback to making such grants at all. Can measurement systems be developed that do not overburden grantees and whose …
Small grants in a big country
In a country like Brazil where many still live in poverty, fighting inequality and social exclusion are top priorities, and they require social change. Brazilian philanthropy – or private social investment, as it is called …
Small grants fill a niche
With two-thirds of the 70,000 US private foundations having assets of less than $1 million, what value can small foundations bring to international philanthropy? In 2009 the Association of Small Foundations launched an international programme …