explore by Key Issue Areas

We have grouped tools for activists and practitioners who may be interested in specific dimensions of scaling or broadening their work. If you are seeking to address any of the issues below, take a look at the grouped tools below, which we think may be of particular relevance for these aspects of the work of scaling. Furthermore, these issue areas are also grouped by organization size: "very grassroots organizations" and "established organizations" to help guide different-sized organizations to identify the issue areas that we think may be most relevant for scaling up.

Grassroots organizations

If you are a very grassroots organization just starting out, you may consider focusing on the following tools to begin thinking about creating a broader impact and broadening the appeal and/or engagement with your work.

Issue Area: Creating broader impact

To create a broader impact you need to:

Issue Area: Broadening the appeal and/or engagement with your work

You may also consider using these tools to address the following questions about broadening the appeal and/or engagement with your work:

How do we frame our message to generate broad appeal? How do we frame our core message to target different audiences?

What are ways to lower the costs and risks for new people to join our work?

How do we make sure we are not re-inventing the wheel?

ESTABlished ORGANIZATIONS

If you are a more established group/organization, you can use these tools to help address specific questions, such as questions about building legitimacy, staying focused, gaining visibility and funding, working across conflict lines and handling conflicts within the groups.

Issue Area: Building legitimacy

Who can we partner with to broaden the impact of our work? (How) can we partner with groups/individuals whose core missions/values differ from ours?

What can we do to work within a community where many oppose us? How can we overcome opposition and/or increase our legitimacy?

How do we strengthen our movement to withstand the inevitable backlash from the government or others?

What are effective strategies for engaging with different actors/stakeholders (government/media/academia/non-profits) to advance our agenda?

How do we convince policymakers to take us seriously?

Issue area: Staying focused

What pitfalls should we anticipate to avoid compromising our values while trying to obtain our goals?

How do we prevent ‘mission creep’ and remain focused on a core area?

Issue area: Gaining visibility and funding

How do we spread the word about what we are doing?

What should we anticipate when seeking funds from large donors? What are the trade-offs of different funding streams?

How do we sustain this work over the long term?

Issue area: Handling conflicts within the group and working across conflict lines

How can we handle conflict-related issues that arise within our group?

How can we generate support when there is little political/grassroots inclination to support cross-conflict initiatives?

How do we build a movement that crosses ethnic/religious/political/conflict lines in our country?