Impact Explained: Scaling vs. Scaling IMPACT — Transcript

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1. 0:00so you have a solution to an important
2. 0:03environmental or social challenge you've
3. 0:05tested and iterated on that solution you
4. 0:08have evidence and traction to show that
5. 0:10it works and now you're looking to scale
6. 0:14but what does that mean today we're
7. 0:16going to talk about the difference
8. 0:18between scaling and scaling impact and
9. 0:21give you a quick example of what scaling
10. 0:23impact looks like in
11. 0:25[Music]
12. 0:28practice here in a business school we
13. 0:30talk a lot about scale in terms of
14. 0:32commercial or traditional markets how do
15. 0:35you take a startup and get it as big as
16. 0:38possible the next Amazon Target or
17. 0:41Coca-Cola those traditional businesses
18. 0:43are thinking about growing their
19. 0:45footprint selling more widgets gaining
20. 0:47more customers framing their goals
21. 0:50around sales market share or most
22. 0:53importantly
23. 0:55profits but that vision of scale is not
24. 0:58the same in the impact SE sector for
25. 1:01Enterprises with a social or
26. 1:03environmental Mission the ultimate goal
27. 1:06is not to maximize profit it's about
28. 1:09maximizing impact and getting closer to
29. 1:12meeting the level of need and solving
30. 1:15social problems and that's really hard
31. 1:17to do just by selling more widgets or
32. 1:20expanding your organization's footprint
33. 1:23for you as a leader of an impact
34. 1:25organization that means framing your
35. 1:27scaling goals not just around your
36. 1:30organization but around the magnitude of
37. 1:32the
38. 1:34problem that's going to require you to
39. 1:36think differently about how you leverage
40. 1:38your unique assets and the solutions
41. 1:41that you created it might mean that your
42. 1:43organization stays small but you find
43. 1:47Partners corporations or government who
44. 1:50can expand your reach perhaps you use
45. 1:54your data to advocate for policy
46. 1:57change maybe you offer training so
47. 2:00others can learn from your Solutions and
48. 2:03extend your work and on and on so what
49. 2:06does this look like in practice let's
50. 2:09take a look at 1 acre fund a social
51. 2:11Enterprise working to help small holder
52. 2:14Farmers grow more food and earn more
53. 2:17money they started in 2006 with their
54. 2:20own field officers selling a bundle of
55. 2:24farming inputs financing and training to
56. 2:27small holder farmers in Kenya by the end
57. 2:30of their first year they had piloted
58. 2:32their solution and had reached 38
59. 2:35Farmers by year four they were serving
60. 2:3831,000 farmers and by 2020 they had
61. 2:42served over 1 million it was incredible
62. 2:46progress but yet they knew that just
63. 2:49hiring more staff and growing to more
64. 2:52locations wouldn't get them close to
65. 2:54meeting the size of the
66. 2:56problem over 50 million small Haler
67. 3:00farmers in subsaharan Africa alone so
68. 3:04when acre fund began to frame their
69. 3:06goals around the magnitude of the
70. 3:08problem which they knew would require
71. 3:10them to leverage their Assets in new
72. 3:12ways to reach their current goal of
73. 3:14impacting 10 million Farmers by 2030
74. 3:17they're continuing to grow and sell
75. 3:20their own bundles but they're also
76. 3:23training existing government
77. 3:25agricultural officers to share practices
78. 3:29and help them be more effective in
79. 3:31supporting
80. 3:32Farmers they're working with private
81. 3:34sector companies to strengthen seed
82. 3:37markets they're advocating for policy
83. 3:39change to impact small holder Farmers
84. 3:42yields and incomes and much more one
85. 3:46acre fund realized that their initial
86. 3:48solution would not scale at the rate
87. 3:50they desired to meet the magnitude of
88. 3:53need so they took a step back to see the
89. 3:56other ways in which they were well
90. 3:58positioned to move toward impact at
91. 4:00scale and how might you as a social
92. 4:02Enterprise think about scaling your own
93. 4:04impact whether it's on a local a
94. 4:06national or a global level check out our
95. 4:09next video four Pathways to impact at
96. 4:13[Music]
97. 4:19scale