MEMBER STORIES & STUDIES
Members’ stories and studies share firsthand experiences and learning from across the global scaling community. Contributions are welcomed year‑round, with stories often spotlighted during newsletter production cycles.
Scaling Up Impact – the Key Challenge for the Development Community Takeaways from a Workshop of the Scaling Community of Practice
By: Lawrence Cooley, Richard Kohl, and Johannes Linn “Scaling up impact” is the new watchword in development. Cynics might be inclined to dismiss it as the newest fad in the merry-go-round of fads in development theory and practice. But this would be a serious mistake. It is high time that the development community gets beyond the prevalent focus[1] on one-off projects, beyond “pilots-to-nowhere”, beyond throwing everything we have at “our” project to make it work while forgetting what happens when it ends. And it is not good enough to assume, just because our project has worked, that “someone will pick ...
USAID Organizational Capacity Assessment
The Organizational Capacity Assessment (OCA) is a structured tool for a facilitated self-assessment of an organization’s capacity followed by action planning for capacity improvements. The self-assessment approach increases ownership of the action plan. The OCA format helps the organization reflect on its processes and functions, and score itself against benchmarks. Based on the discussions and the scoring, the organization shape and sets priorities for actions it can take to strengthen its capacity ...
