Our model worked.
It was proven, cost-effective, and saving lives.
We had the data. We had the stories.
So why change anything?
Because no matter how good it was, it would never reach enough people.
That realisation took a while to land. For a long time, our instinct was to do more - replicate, refine, expand our way of working.
We were proud of our model, and rightly so. It delivered impact that was demonstrable and robust, backed by external evaluations. It felt wrong to imagine diluting that.
But when we zoomed out, the question became uncomfortable:
If we kept delivering our model, how many people would we actually reach in the next 10+ years?
The answer wasn’t enough.
So, we started to explore new routes - supporting other organisations, open-sourcing parts of the model. And eventually, one pathway stood out: government.
It made sense intellectually. Governments reach people at scale. They’re the only ones who can sustain services at national level.
But emotionally and operationally, it was a huge leap.
The first attempts? Messy.
Our results were mixed, our teams were sceptical – they were from the communities in which they worked and the results were not great.
We were slower, less efficient, and often less impactful - at least in the short term.
And honestly, it was so much easier when we did it ourselves.
But we persisted.
We started unpacking our model - distilling what was truly essential and simplifying everything else.
We embraced what I now realise was Kevin Starr from Mulago's mantra: simple enough, cheap enough, and good enough.
Not perfect. Not polished. But scalable. I often used the term we are not building a platinum or gold standard – silver or bronze is good enough.
That required unlearning a lot of what had made us successful in the first place.
We made mistakes, tried to always fail forward, rebuilt.
It took humility, patience, and a lot of deep breaths – and learning from others.
But slowly, we began to see a different kind of impact emerge - the kind that could last.
It’s one of the hardest mindset shifts I’ve ever led through.
And the truth is, you can’t read your way into it.
You have to live it.
There are brilliant frameworks and resources out there - Mulago Foundation’s work on “doer and payer at scale,” Spring Impact’s scaling pathways, and many others.
But the lived experience - the frustration, the two steps forward and one step back, the self-doubt - that’s what really teaches you.
If you’re at that crossroads now - trying to decide whether to scale your model or your impact - know that it’s not an easy journey, but it’s a worthwhile one.
Sometimes the bravest leadership move you can make is to love the problem more than your solution.
Sometimes the bravest leadership move you can make is to love the problem more than your solution.
💭 This week’s reflection:
Have you ever had to let go of something that worked, to reach something that mattered more?
I’d love to hear what that shift looked like for you.
This post kicks off a short series on scaling impact — what I learned leading Living Goods through the messy, human side of scale: from letting go of a model, to shifting where to grow, to facing the real cost of impact.
Warmly,
Liz
Strategic Advisor | Former CEO | Founder, Volante
Based in Kenya, available globally
