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Digital democracy
(2006)
Comite para Democratizacao da Informatica (CDI) is a non-political, non-profit, and non-governmental organization founded in Brazil in 1995. It aims to promote the social inclusion of less-privileged people, using information and communication technologies to teach them the basic concepts of self-esteem, citizenship and their rights as individuals. CDI executive director and founder Rodrigo Baggio's first step was to launch a campaign called "Computers for All", where companies were contacted and asked to donate used computers to the favelas. The next step was to create computer schools in the slums. In response to demand for new schools in other Brazilian states and beyond, CDI designed a "social franchise" model. The idea was to set up regional CDI offices to create new schools. Students are motivated to develop ideas that generate income and give them better employment prospects. The challenge now is for Baggio and his team to manage growth without losing the original vision of CDI.
This case documents the circumstances of managing the growth phase of a start-up company. Entropy International faces the unique challenges and opportunities of social entrepreneurship but also entrepreneurship in general. Founded by a visionary environmental activist in 1996 as an environmental consulting boutique in the United Kingdom, Entropy grew with the emerging needs of large multinational corporations to publicly report on and minimise the environmental and social impacts of their operations. Entropy started out as a two-person consultancy to become the market leader in Europe, selling an integrated environmental, health and safety, quality control and reporting suite. At the time of the case (March 2003), Entropy employed 30 people and expected revenues of 1.6 million pounds for fiscal year 2003.
Innovation and Scaling for Impact forces us to reassess how social sector organizations create value. Drawing on a decade of research, Christian Seelos and Johanna Mair transcend widely held misconceptions, getting to the core of what a sound impact strategy entails in the nonprofit world. They reveal an overlooked nexus between investments that might not pan out (innovation) and expansion based on existing strengths (scaling). In the process, it becomes clear that managing this tension is a difficult balancing act that fundamentally defines an organization and its impact.
The authors examine innovation pathologies that can derail organizations by thwarting their efforts to juggle these imperatives. Then, through four rich case studies, they detail innovation archetypes that effectively sidestep these pathologies and blend innovation with scaling. Readers will come away with conceptual models to drive progress in the social sector and tools for defining the future of their organizations.