DearReader,
One of the most common assumptions I come across in social impact is surprisingly simple.
If a pilot works, the next step is to scale it.
Unfortunately, that is rarely how scale works.
One of the biggest lessons I learned as a CEO, and one I now find myself discussing with clients regularly, is that what succeeds in a pilot (even with a strong RCT) often will not succeed at population level, at least not in its current form.
Not because the idea is wrong.
But because the context changes completely.
What works at scale is often not the same as scaling what works
Pilots are usually designed to answer one question:
Does this intervention work?
Scaling introduces a very different question:
Can this intervention survive reality?
And reality brings constraints that pilots are often protected from.
Pilots frequently benefit from:
✨ Exceptional staff.
✨ Intensive support.
✨ Flexible funding.
✨ Founder attention.
✨ Close oversight.
Scale looks very different.
It means working within:
⚠️ Budget constraints.
⚠️ Workforce shortages.
⚠️ Procurement systems.
⚠️ Leadership turnover.
⚠️ Competing priorities.
⚠️ Political realities.
⚠️ Operational complexity.
The question shifts from:
to:
"Can ordinary systems make this work consistently?"
That is a very different challenge.
Designing for scale requires different choices
The organisations that ultimately achieve population level impact often start asking different questions much earlier.
Can governments afford this?
Can frontline workers realistically deliver it?
What is essential, and what is simply best practice?
What happens when resources become constrained?
What happens when leadership changes?
Those questions often lead to uncomfortable trade offs.
Sometimes scale requires choosing:
- Simplicity over sophistication.
- Reliability over optimisation.
- Adaptability over fidelity.
The goal is not to preserve a pilot exactly as it was.
It is to create something that can survive real systems, real politics and real constraints while still delivering meaningful impact.
Reach is not scale
This brings me to another distinction that I think deserves far more attention.
In social impact, we often celebrate reach.
📈 The number of people reached.
📈 The number of communities served.
📈 The number of facilities implementing a model.
Those numbers matter.
But they only tell part of the story.
Reach tells us how far something has spread.
It tells us very little about whether that impact will last.
For me, real scale is where three things come together:
🎯 Meaningful impact.
💰 Affordability.
⏳ Sustainability over time.
Can outcomes be maintained? Can the system afford them?
Can they continue long after external support disappears?
The organisations that ultimately achieve population level impact are rarely those that grow the fastest.
More often, they are the ones willing to spend years improving affordability, strengthening systems, building evidence and making difficult trade offs before they accelerate.
One final thought
Reach matters.
But reach without impact is meaningless.
Reach without affordability is fragile.
Reach without sustainability is temporary.
The organisations I most admire are not obsessed with growth.
They are obsessed with creating impact that lasts.
And that means designing for scale from the very beginning.
Reflection question
👉 When you think about scale in your own work, which receives the most attention today? Reach. Impact. Affordability. Or sustainability? And which deserves more attention?
Warmly,
Liz
Strategic Advisor | Former CEO | Founder, Volante
Based in Kenya, available globally
