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Issue Brief #7: 

Scaling Programs & 

Growing Impact with the 

Social Innovation Fund 

A product of the National Assessment of 

the Social Innovation Fund (SIF)

September 2016
Issue Brief #7: 

Scaling Programs and Growing Impact with the Social Innovation Fund 

September 2016 

Authors 

Lara Malakoff, M.U.R.P. 

Janet Griffith, Ph.D. 

Submitted To 

Lily Zandniapour, Ph.D. 

Office of Research and Evaluation 

Corporation for National and Community Service 

For inquiries, please contact evaluation@cns.gov

Acknowledgements 

Janet Pershing, Ph.D. and Xiaodong Zhang, Ph.D., of ICF International, provided review and insights that 

informed the development of this product. 

About This Document 

This document was produced pursuant to a contract between the Corporation for National and 

Community Service and ICF International (Contract Number: GS-23F-8182H; CNSHQ13F0091).

ICF International | 9300 Lee Highway | Fairfax, VA 22031-1207 | www.icfi.com

This document was commissioned as an independent study by the Corporation for National and 

Community Service. Views expressed in the document do not necessarily reflect the official viewpoints of 

the agency or its staff. This document is in the public domain. Authorization to reproduce it in whole or 

in part is granted. This document has been formatted to be readable by assistive technologies, in 

accordance with Section 508 regulations. 

Recommended Citation 

Malakoff, L. & Griffith, J. (2016). Issue Brief #7: Scaling Programs and Growing Impact with the Social 

Innovation Fund. (Prepared for the Corporation for National and Community Service, Office of Research 

and Evaluation). Fairfax, VA: ICF International. 

About CNCS 

The Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) is a federal agency that improves lives, 

strengthens communities, and fosters civic engagement through service and volunteering. Each year, 

CNCS engages five million Americans of all ages and backgrounds through AmeriCorps, Senior Corps, 

the Social Innovation Fund, the Volunteer Generation Fund, and other programs, and leads the 

President's national call to service initiative, United We Serve. For more information, visit 

NationalService.gov. 
nationalservice.gov/research i 

Table of Contents 

Table of Contents ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- i

1. Introduction ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1

2. Approaches to Growing Impact/Scaling ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2

2.1 Expanding in the Current Location ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 2

2.2 Expanding to New Locations and Target Populations ---------------------------------------------- 2

2.3 Expanding and Deepening Services --------------------------------------------------------------------- 3

3. Conditions for Successful Scaling--------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4

3.1 Strong Evidence of Effectiveness ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4

3.2 Need for Services--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5

3.3 Deep Local Knowledge and Relationships------------------------------------------------------------- 6

3.4 Infrastructure/Organizational Capacity ---------------------------------------------------------------- 6

3.5 Well-Documented Models --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 7

4. The Role of the SIF in Scaling -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 7

4.1 Expanding Opportunities for Funding ----------------------------------------------------------------- 8

4.2 Building Organizational Capacity ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 8

4.3 Enhancing Implementation Partnerships -------------------------------------------------------------- 9

5. Conclusion ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 11

About This Issue Brief -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 11

About the Social Innovation Fund ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 11
nationalservice.gov/research 1 

1. Introduction

The Social Innovation Fund (SIF) leverages public and private 

resources to grow community solutions based on evidence of 

results. The National Assessment of the SIF seeks to document 

and capture the impact the SIF has on key program 

stakeholders. Findings from this multi-component independent 

assessment, sponsored by the Corporation for National and 

Community Service’s (CNCS) Office of Research and 

Evaluation and conducted by ICF International, will tell the 

story of the SIF and identify lessons learned. The SIF makes grants to experienced grant-making 

organizations, which identify promising programs within communities through an open and competitive 

process and distribute funds to high-performing nonprofit organizations that implement them, and 

match the federal funds dollar-for-dollar. SIF subgrantees also match the funding they receive dollar-fordollar. All SIF-funded interventions undergo rigorous, independent evaluations to advance the base of 

evidence for the funded intervention. 

Scaling is one of the SIF’s pillars and addresses its goal of “finding what works, and making it work for 

more people,”—growing the impact of the work. Specifically, the Congressional authorization requires 

grantees to use funds received through the SIF to "make subgrants to community organizations that will 

use the funds to replicate or expand proven initiatives, or support new initiatives, in low-income 

communities.”1 Results from the SIF National Assessment’s grantee survey2 showed that SIF grantees 

increased their reliance on rigorous evaluation as a basis for selecting programs to scale up. As this issue 

brief demonstrates, the SIF has supported grantees and subgrantees in deciding how, when, and where to 

scale their programs and helped them build capacity and support to implement their scaling models. 

This issue brief shares best practices and lessons 

about ways that SIF grantees and their 

subgrantees used evidence of effectiveness to 

deepen or broaden their impact. The brief first 

presents an overview of approaches that SIF 

grantees and subgrantees have employed to 

scale their programs. It then presents 

information about factors that contributed to 

successful scaling and outlines ways that the SIF 

has supported scaling efforts. Each section 

provides a set of action-oriented 

recommendations. Some related resources about 

scaling are also included. This brief is informed by interviews with four SIF “Classic”3 grantees, three of 

their subgrantees, one funding partner, and two experts in the field. 

1 Section 198K (i), National and Community Service Act of 1990, as amended, Public Law 101-610, from 

http://www.nationalservice.gov/sites/default/files/documents/1990_serviceact_as%20amended%20through%20pl%20111-13.pdf

2

 Zhang, X., Griffith, J., Sun, J., Malakoff, L., Pershing, J., Marsland, W., Peters, K., & Field, E. (2015) The SIF’s Impact on 

Strengthening Organizational Capacity, Fairfax, VA: ICF International. 

3

 The SIF has two grant programs: Classic and Pay for Success (PFS). The Classic program unites public and private resources to 

evaluate and grow innovative community-based solutions that have evidence of results in low-income communities. PFS is an 

innovative contracting and financing model that leverages philanthropic and private dollars to fund services up front, with the 

government, or other entity, paying after they generate results. This issue brief focuses on SIF Classic only. 

“Organizations like GEO, the SIF, and others have been 

successful in shifting conversations about scaling in the field 

to be more complex, in recognizing that it's not about scale for 

scale's sake. It’s about growing impact, and this can happen 

in several ways. Often people talk about nonprofits as though 

they’re a monolithic entity, but the range of problems to solve 

and the range of strategies they’re using to solve those 

problems is incredibly wide. It doesn’t make sense to boil 

down scale to one simplistic definition of opening more offices 

or increasing the number of clients served.”

–Meghan Duffy, Grantmakers for Effective Organizations

Key Research Questions:

 What does “scaling/growing impact”

mean in the context of the SIF program?

 What are the necessary conditions for

successful scaling?

 How has the SIF helped grantees and

subgrantees scale programs that work?
nationalservice.gov/research 2 

2. Approaches to Growing Impact/Scaling 

Through the SIF’s investments in evaluation and 

scale, grantees and subgrantees have implemented 

a variety of approaches to growing impact. They 

have expanded the numbers of people served in an 

existing location or replicated or adapted effective 

models in new environments for new populations, 

often with new funding sources. At the outset of 

their SIF grants, grantees and their subgrantee 

partners articulated their approaches to growing 

program impact in scaling plans and used the plans 

to monitor progress throughout the grant period. 

The scaling plans included growth goals, plans for 

achieving the goals, resources to be invested in 

scaling, planned actions to achieve goals, plans for 

monitoring progress, and potential risk and challenges. Over time, grantees and subgrantees also have 

stepped back to analyze their approaches to the problems they were trying to solve and expanded their 

thinking about the meaning of growing impact to incorporate deepening services and outcomes. 

Throughout the SIF, grantees and subgrantees have learned more about what it requires to grow the 

impact of their work, and they grew their programs—through expansion, replication, or adaptation—as 

they developed the evidence, opportunities, and resources to do so. 

2.1 Expanding in the Current Location 

Grantees and subgrantees used SIF and match funding to serve more people in their current locations. 

For example, between the start of its SIF grant in 2010 and 2015, New Profit, Inc. provided technical 

assistance to help almost all of its subgrantees meet their goal of doubling the number of youth ages 12-24 

served by programs designed to increase high school graduation, college enrollment, and employment. 

2.2 Expanding to New Locations and Target Populations 

Some grantees and subgrantees scaled their work by funding effective models in new locations. In 

expanding to new locations or populations, SIF scaling efforts retained a strong focus on evidence, datadriven approaches, and competitive selection, all prominent characteristics of the SIF. When they 

expanded their SIF programs to new environments, however, grantees and subgrantees had to make 

decisions regarding program fidelity—which elements needed to remain unchanged and which could be 

modified to better fit the new needs and context. A number of grantees and subgrantees adapted their 

program model as they scaled, depending on evidence, funding environments, or populations served. 

Through its 2010 SIF grant, REDF funded programs to create job opportunities for people who face 

barriers to employment. Prior to its SIF grant, REDF funded three or four social enterprises at any one 

time. With the SIF, REDF increased the number of subgrantees it funded to 10, expanded one in an 

additional location, and collected a comparable set of data from different programs to examine which 

adaptations of the social enterprise model were likely to be most successful in terms of employment and 

retention of the target population. REDF learned that adaptation of the social enterprise model was 

required to build a sustainable, replicable model at scale. Prior to the SIF, REDF worked primarily in the 

San Francisco Bay area. When REDF expanded its SIF program to fund organizations doing similar work 

in southern California, it saw the need to adapt its program to the new environment, given the different 

“So the question then is shifting... from how do you scale 

this particular program to how do you scale the impact of 

the program, which may not be linear with replication. It 

may be that you can share what you've learned through 

technical assistance or you can focus on policy change. 

So, the biggest shift I've seen is for those that have scaled 

successfully and have evidence of what works, a real hard 

look at different strategies for truly scaling the impact of 

their work...When I look at organizations in SIF...this is the 

problem they’re grappling with...they are saying, ‘My first 

three year plan was to go from 1,000 to 1,500 young 

people.’ Is it satisfying to go then from 1,500 to 2,000 or

would my time and effort be better spent on figuring out 

how I share what I’m learning in a way that would influence 

tens of thousands of kids?”

–Jeff Bradach, The Bridgespan Group
nationalservice.gov/research 3 

labor market, business climate, and population needing employment. However, REDF identified three 

core elements common to all its funded programs: transitional jobs suited to the skills of the target 

population, work environments supportive of people overcoming barriers to work, and connections to 

support services to help people sustain employment. Having these three core elements helped REDF 

sustain its attention to providing job opportunities for underserved people in all the communities where 

it operates. 

Expanding to a new location often meant augmenting staff and infrastructure at both the current and the 

new locations. Although some staff and resources can be shared across locations, the program in the new 

location may require additional dedicated administrative or programmatic staff with different skills or 

knowledge to serve new populations or community needs. When implementing a program in a new 

location, organizations had to look carefully at their staff’s capacity and ensure that resources were in 

place to support the work at both the current and new locations. 

2.3 Expanding and Deepening Services 

After setting initial goals to quickly increase the number of people served, some grantees and subgrantees 

realized they needed to offer a more comprehensive set of services to meet their objectives and have an 

impact. This insight sometimes meant deciding to expand the depth of services as well as the number of 

people served. AIDS United subgrantee Medical AIDS Outreach, for example, achieved its mission to 

provide HIV care to patients in rural areas by serving those patients more holistically, with interventions 

that offered more comprehensive services—such as mental health and pharmacy consultations via 

telemedicine. Doing so produced better outcomes for clients. 

When grantees and subgrantees deepened services, it 

often positioned them to produce greater impact. This 

shift attracted additional funding, which enabled 

further scaling of their programs. With its 2011 SIF 

grant, Mile High United Way (MHUW) set out to 

fund organizations working to improve literacy 

outcomes for 25,000 children across the state of 

Colorado. As the organization built evidence about 

effective implementation models and developed the needed organizational infrastructure, it shifted its 

approach to expanding and deepening its services to a smaller number of children and families than 

originally planned. This depth of service produced positive outcomes, including evidence that children 

who received services were better prepared when they entered kindergarten, a finding that garnered 

support for scaling. 

Recommendations for choosing a growing impact/scaling approach: 

 Consider supporting initiatives that deepen services and strengthen outcomes, as well as those that 

serve more people or implement a program model in new locations, as the basis for further scaling. 

 Distinguish those aspects of the model integral to its effectiveness from those that can be adapted to 

address the demands of new populations, locations, or funding and organizational environments. 

“Our original proposal was to serve 25,000 children 

across Colorado, but it didn’t happen that way. We’re 

serving a smaller amount of children and families at a 

much deeper level and building the organization to 

serve children and families more completely with an 

intervention they now feel more confident about.”

–Jerene Petersen, SIF grantee, Mile High United Way
nationalservice.gov/research 4 

3. Conditions for Successful Scaling 

The SIF was the first opportunity for many grantees and subgrantees to emphasize scaling strongly and 

systematically. Because the SIF encouraged grantees and subgrantees to think carefully about how to 

scale their programs, they came away with insights about the factors that contribute to successful scaling. 

To scale successfully, both the intervention and the implementing organization must be ready. For 

interventions, readiness requires strong evidence and documentation of need; for organizations, both 

capacity and deep local knowledge are required. 

3.1 Strong Evidence of Effectiveness 

SIF-funded programs entered the SIF with at least 

preliminary evidence of effectiveness and built further 

evidence through evaluation. Evidence was the basis for 

deciding how, when, and which programs to scale, and 

programs could not scale effectively without strong evidence. The emphasis on evidence gave grantees a 

foundation from which to interpret evaluation results, identify what worked, and use data to improve 

programs. In addition, evidence of effectiveness encouraged funders to invest because it gave them 

confidence the programs would succeed. Both the SIF emphasis on evaluation and its relatively long 

period of funding, which allowed time to gather and analyze evidence, were important factors in 

successful scaling. 

The evidence that the SIF developed shed light on what worked and where there were challenges, and 

organizations adjusted accordingly. For example, REDF’s evaluation of its employment programs 

Scaling Quality Child Care Certification in Colorado

The Colorado Statewide Parent Coalition (CSPC) grew the Providers Advancing School Outcomes (PASO) program, funded 

through a 2011 SIF subgrant from Mile High United Way. After initially focusing on developing the skills of independent child

care providers, CSPC shifted to spreading its child care training model to new communities across the state. Many families 

in Colorado rely on family, friends, and neighbors for child care, so the program’s goal was to train these caregivers, 

enhance the quality of care for young Colorado children, and better prepare them for kindergarten. The training of child care 

providers has had a significant impact on kindergarten readiness in Colorado. Through the SIF, one of the program’s sites 

underwent a process evaluation, and the results suggested revising its training so that participants could receive the 

nationally recognized Child Development Associate (CDA) certification. Now, upon program completion, participants receive 

CDA certification. CDA was attractive, because it reduced barriers to participation (e.g., did not require proof of U.S. 

citizenship) and streamlined the training, shortened from 13 months to nine. 

In exploring different models for scaling the program over the next few years, CSPC seeks to identify organizations already 

invested in their communities, expand the impact of curriculum training instruction, and secure more sustainable funding. For 

example, CSPC is partnering with other community organizations and school districts to serve family, friends, and neighbors, 

and the children in their care. 

One opportunity for extending the program beyond CSPC’s ability is to directly deliver the train-the-trainer model for the 

PASO curriculum to guide implementation in new communities in Colorado. This approach echoes the SIF leverage model 

by identifying communities of high need with partners who want to develop the leadership infrastructure to host the program. 

CSPC hopes to provide these communities with initial grants—which the communities would match—to purchase the PASO 

curriculum and train-the-trainer model to deliver the trainings in the high quality intensive manner essential to their success. 

CSPC’s role would be that of trainer, quality assurance entity, and evaluator, rather than implementer. CSPC is also 

considering creating a training institute to offer the CDA curriculum through a fee-for-service model, which would diversify

the organization’s revenue stream as well as increase the impact of its work. CSPC continues to work with Mile High United 

Way, philanthropic groups in Colorado, and other potential funders to raise financing to implement its scaling approach.

“It’s been good to capture the challenges and 

successes over five years and adjust on the 

ground. When we create tools, it’ll definitely be 

better informed because of the length of what 

SIF provided us.”

–Maura Riordan, SIF grantee, AIDS United
nationalservice.gov/research 5 

showed that beneficiaries were getting jobs, but 

that employment did not always increase their net 

income and, despite increased earned income, 

access to housing and other benefits declined. 

These findings prompted REDF to concentrate 

more on building career pathways to follow initial 

employment. 

Evidence also helped grantees and subgrantees 

make the case to funders to support the growth of 

programs that had received SIF support. AIDS 

United subgrantees Medical AIDS Outreach and 

Action AIDS indicated that the capacity to show 

the rigor of their evaluation designs and the results 

placed them in a more competitive position in new 

funding pools. As a result, they received funding to grow their programs from the Centers for Disease 

Control and Prevention (CDC), the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), and 

Medicaid. 

3.2 Need for Services 

The programs supported by the SIF provided benefits to underserved people and communities. Programs 

were successful and scalable when the interventions addressed well-recognized needs in the communities 

served. MHUW subgrantee Colorado Statewide Parent Coalition (CSPC) was confident that its Providers 

Advancing School Outcomes (PASO) program would succeed, because the need for service was so high. 

PASO provided independent child care provider training in a state where 57% of children with both 

parents working receive care from family, friends, and neighbors outside of licensed child care facilities. 

REDF subgrantee Center for Employment Opportunities (CEO), based in New York City, provided 

employment services to a specific population—people returning from prison. It wanted to expand its 

program to other parts of the country. CEO chose to expand the program to implementation sites that 

already had a strong re-entry center, because the need for CEO’s services was evident and not yet 

addressed. There was also infrastructure already in place to support the services. In making these scaling 

decisions, CEO identified six high-level growth criteria4: 

1. The specific service is needed. For CEO to operate a minimum number of work crews, it 

required enough people re-entering the community from prison. 

2. The location meets the minimum criteria for scale. CEO had to be confident that there was a gap 

in the services delivered to the local re-entering population, which CEO could address. 

3. A referral pipeline can be developed. CEO obtained commitments from state parole officials and 

local officers to refer people leaving prison to the program. 

4. Local knowledge can be acquired. CEO leveraged its ability to navigate the complex 

governments, political structures, and community dynamics of the community. 

5. There is a government champion. CEO developed and maintained strong relationships with 

supporters from within the government in order to sustain the program. 

 

4

 Source: http://www.mdrc.org/publication/successful-prisoner-reentry-program-expands

Evidence and Need for Service

Evidence alone did not always determine what programs 

were scaled. For example, building a substantial body of 

evidence was, in some cases, less important than 

proposing a program that was appealing, even if the 

evidence was only preliminary. SIF grantee Mile High 

United Way had met with its funders to present preliminary 

evidence and explore paths toward future funding. 

However, because one of the programs on which it 

presented evidence—a preschool program implemented by 

one of the subgrantees—was appealing and met a local 

need, a foundation within a local school district decided to 

fully fund the expansion after a year, before final evaluation 

data were available, and adopt the program as part of the 

district-wide curriculum.
nationalservice.gov/research 6 

6. Partners to support implementation are available. CEO partnered with job providers to ensure

that they could cover the costs of work crews over time and offer employees the opportunity to

acquire basic work skills.

3.3 Deep Local Knowledge and Relationships 

Local relationships were a critical condition for scaling, especially when implementing a program in new 

locations. In addition to understanding the program and the need for services, it was important to know 

the community’s key players and funders to fully understand the feasibility of implementing a particular 

intervention. 

This consideration was especially important when 

introducing a national model to a new place. MHUW 

brought a model for improving literacy to Colorado 

with the SIF. Working in Colorado posed challenges, 

because the state is very rural, with a few large urban 

areas, and strong local control. MHUW staff 

implemented the program, bringing existing 

relationships to the work of implementation, which 

eased the process of supporting growth in new locations across the state. Without MHUW’s involvement, 

an organization from outside Colorado would have had difficulty gaining acceptance for the program 

within the state. 

When REDF expanded its program to a new community, it chose the Los Angeles area, because its 

business community, government, philanthropy, and nonprofit players all saw the value and supported

the program model. REDF also did its homework and learned that social enterprises already existed in 

the area, indicating strong support for this type of intervention. REDF knew that even though it could not 

fund all the entities it wanted to, the area contained many other funders to work with, and they believed 

they could galvanize resources over time to expand the work. 

3.4 Infrastructure/Organizational Capacity 

Scaling required programs to have the organizational capacity to support growth. Before deciding to 

scale programs, SIF grantees looked closely at organizational readiness.5 Growing a program that met SIF 

standards required grantees and subgrantees to invest in performance measurement, data use, 

leadership, governance, financial management capabilities, technology infrastructure, human resources, 

and administrative support. SIF grantees sought to identify subgrantees with the organizational readiness 

to grow their impact and invested in increasing their organizational capacity. 

The SIF dramatically influenced how MHUW chose to 

invest. MHUW set out to improve literacy outcomes for 

Colorado children, but the SIF’s focus on growing 

impact prompted MHUW to ensure that the 

organizations it funded had the organizational strength 

to support growth. MHUW learned that sufficient 

5

 Grantees “make subgrants of a sufficient size and scope to enable the community organizations to build their capacity to manage 

initiatives, and sustain replication or expansion of the initiatives.” Section 198K (i), National and Community Service Act of 

1990, as amended, Public Law 101-610, from 

http://www.nationalservice.gov/sites/default/files/documents/1990_serviceact_as%20amended%20through%20pl%

20111-13.pdf. 

“In thinking about national scaling, we see in Colorado 

how critical local relationships are and how critical it is 

for organizations to understand the context, know the 

donors, and know the players. It is hard to scale a 

national program locally without a really strong 

foundation, regardless of whether the evidence is there.”

–Kenzie Strong, SIF grantee, Mile High United Way

“The message to organizations is, ‘They can scale, but 

if they want to scale with impact, investment in 

fundamentals is necessary.’”

–Kenzie Strong, SIF grantee, Mile High United Way
nationalservice.gov/research 7 

organizational capacity was a prerequisite to impact and growth. It found that by investing in sound 

organizations with the ability to get from outputs to outcomes, literacy outcomes followed. 

As programs scaled, organizations had to continue to grow the infrastructure at its original location and 

at new locations, to support the changes that scaling brought about, such as reliance on new funding. 

During the SIF, programs typically operated with one primary revenue source. As the SIF funding ended 

and programs grew, their funding often came from a combination of smaller sources. CEO noted that, 

after SIF funding ended, it had to grow its infrastructure and dedicate resources to manage funding from 

multiple sources. CEO continues to build the organizational infrastructure necessary to coordinate its 

smaller funding sources, identify alignment among the funders’ requirements, and comply with those 

requirements. 

3.5 Well-Documented Models 

For scaling to occur, the model being scaled must be stable and well-documented. Grantees and 

subgrantees developed implementation manuals and toolkits to document how the program models 

functioned, which supported scaling while keeping the key aspects of the successful model intact. The 

documentation also gave other organizations a starting point from which to implement the model to 

serve a new population or new location. 

Through the SIF, AIDS United found that the peer navigator model, implemented by many of its 

subgrantees, in which care providers themselves receive HIV services, was successful in recruiting clients 

and retaining them in care. AIDS United subgrantee Christie’s Place found the peer navigator model and 

its mental health services particularly effective for HIV care with the women it served. AIDS United 

encouraged uptake of the peer navigator model by documenting best practices, implementation 

guidance, and preliminary evaluation results from its subgrantees in a guidance manual. Similarly, by the 

end of the SIF grant, MHUW expects to support the development of a detailed implementation manual 

for each of its subgrantees, which will outline exactly how each site implemented its model, facilitating 

the model’s adoption by other organizations. Many MHUW subgrantees would not have the capacity or 

resources to create these implementation manuals without the support MHUW provided through the SIF. 

Recommendations for creating the right conditions to scale: 

 Use evidence to identify what works, ensure the model is stable (or strengthen as needed), attract 

potential funders, and scale programs identified as effective. 

 Assess the need for services and the resources available in communities, including supply (e.g., 

people needing employment) and demand (e.g., need for new employees).

 Know the environment and cultivate relationships where the program is to be scaled.

 Document successful models to support scaling to new populations and new locations.

4. The Role of the SIF in Scaling 

Through their scaling efforts, grantees and 

subgrantees learned the conditions for successful 

scaling. They also provided insights into the ways that 

being part of the SIF contributed to scaling. The SIF 

emphasized growing impact by requiring grantees to 

“When you can say [to foundations], ‘These are our 

subgrantees doing stellar work,’ it has opened up 

some doors when subgrantees have applied at those 

foundations.”

–Maura Riordan, SIF grantee, AIDS United
nationalservice.gov/research 8 

develop and implement scaling plans, as well as providing grantees with the time and resources to focus 

on building evidence and scaling. Also, the intermediary model—a core aspect of the SIF, in which 

competitively selected organizations fund innovative nonprofit organizations and state and local 

government entities to implement programs—influenced how grantees and subgrantees worked together 

to grow the impact of SIF-funded programs. 

The roles of grantees and subgrantees were different yet complementary. The grantees interviewed for 

this issue brief funded subgrantees to support new initiatives to address particular social needs and 

achieve outcomes within SIF’s focus areas. These grantees agreed that their subgrantees each owned and 

implemented its own model for scaling its intervention, which collectively scaled up the subgrantees’ and 

grantee’s work, and grantees supported their subgrantees’ efforts to replicate and expand their models. In 

other instances, grantees may have worked with multiple subgrantees to implement a single program 

model in multiple locations. Under either model, the scaling efforts of subgrantees benefit from the 

support of their intermediary grantmaker. Through the SIF, grantees supported their subgrantees by 

increasing their capacity and visibility to successfully scale programs, and they did this in various ways, 

described below. 

4.1 Expanding Opportunities for Funding 

Being part of the SIF raised the credibility of 

subgrantees, and helped them transform their 

credibility into capital. REDF subgrantee CEO 

reported that being part of the SIF gave credibility that 

“opened the door” when they went to other funders. 

Additionally, SIF grantees used their influence to 

facilitate the visibility and access of their subgrantees 

to a wider pool of potential funders, including local funders, those concerned with similar populations, or 

those interested in funding a model. 

Some grantees, such as AIDS United, ensured their funders knew about the work of their subgrantees 

and facilitated connections between subgrantees and funders they thought were a good match. AIDS 

United helped its subgrantees capitalize on funding opportunities by providing letters of support that 

highlighted their robust evaluation work, compliance capacity, and financial accountability. 

Grantees also promoted the subgrantees’ work among external stakeholders. AIDS United’s support 

elevated Christie’s Place in the eyes of national stakeholders. In part because of the association between 

Christie’s Place and AIDS United, recommendations developed by a 2014 federal interagency working 

group listed Christie’s Place as one of three organizations furthering trauma-informed HIV care. As 

Christie’s Place continues to grow its programming, this national recognition could lead to additional 

opportunities for funding. 

4.2 Building Organizational Capacity 

The role of SIF grantees in scaling was of support and capacity building. Infrastructure and 

organizational capacity are important conditions for successful scaling, and SIF grantees helped their 

subgrantees build this capacity. The grantees spent time and resources developing training, tools, and 

guidance around scaling and sustainability, such as MHUW’s “What Works” event, which brought 

subgrantees and funders together to share lessons learned and highlight critical needs for the 

organizations going forward. MHUW is also planning training that engages community partners to help 

“If an individual donor gave us the same amount of 

money as the SIF, it would not have had the same 

impact. It was the ability to say we had built in 

partnerships with these foundations...These acted as 

good housekeeping seals of approval when you're 

going into new markets...They would signal, ‘Oh, 

these folks are for real. They've been vetted, and 

they're going to put skin in the game.’”

–Sam Schaeffer, SIF subgrantee, Center for 

Employment Opportunities
nationalservice.gov/research 9 

subgrantees think through their approach to scaling, assess their strengths and weaknesses, and quickly 

identify resources to support the work after the SIF funding cycle ends. The goal is for subgrantees to 

leave the SIF with a clear path forward for sustaining and scaling their work.6

Another way that grantees and subgrantees 

supported scaling up of promising models was by 

drawing on their experience in the SIF to provide 

guidance to organizations doing similar work. Two of 

AIDS United’s subgrantees shared the expertise 

gained through implementing their programs with 

organizations implementing similar programs. 

Subgrantee Medical AIDS Outreach, which provides 

HIV care via telemedicine in Alabama, obtained funding through an AmeriCorps program to provide 

guidance to an HIV service organization on the launch of a telemedicine program in rural New Mexico. 

Medical AIDS Outreach also obtained a capacity 

building grant from the Centers for Disease Control 

and Prevention to help other HIV service 

organizations navigate healthcare reform and the 

changing healthcare landscape. 

4.3 Enhancing Implementation Partnerships 

Grantees drew on their influence to invite a wide 

network of partners to support program 

implementation. Grantees helped their subgrantees 

engage new partners in philanthropy, government, 

and the private sector to influence decision-making, 

inform organizational practices, build relationships, 

and learn about new models for implementation to 

enable programmatic scaling. 

As REDF progressed through its 2010 SIF grant and 

then obtained a second grant in 2015, it learned it 

needed to engage a variety of community partners to expand its focus to support career progression. 

REDF engaged mainstream employers that could provide opportunities for a second job after the initial 

social enterprise job—drawing on support from the business community, private sector companies, 

human service agencies, workforce development agencies, economic development offices, and chambers 

of commerce—to keep people employed and advance them in their employment trajectory. In addition, 

when REDF relied exclusively on private dollars to fund programs, it could choose programs to fund 

without a competitive process transparent to the public. As the evidence base grew with SIF funding, 

along with its portfolio, REDF incorporated a variety of public and private funding and established a 

transparent, competitive process and criteria for selecting its portfolio. REDF also introduced more voices 

to the table to influence its decision-making about programs to fund. 

6

 Funded entities must provide "information describing the process by which the eligible entity selected, or will select, community 

organizations to receive the subgrants, to ensure that the community organizations can sustain the initiatives after the subgrant 

period concludes through reliable public revenues, earned income, or private sector funding.” Section 198K (i), National and 

Community Service Act of 1990, as amended, Public Law 101-610, from 

http://www.nationalservice.gov/sites/default/files/documents/1990_serviceact_as%20amended%20through%20pl%

20111-13.pdf. 

“One thing we are hopeful to continue to do is capacity 

building assistance for other organizations. I would 

hate for someone to do it from scratch after our five

years...There is so much we’ve taken from how we’ve 

implemented the project that could be valuable for 

other organizations.”

–Erin Falvey, SIF subgrantee, Christie’s Place

Contributing to the Research

A benefit of providing capacity building support to other

organizations was that grantees and subgrantees 

became known experts with research-based evidence 

to back up their work. In sharing their expertise and 

results, they have contributed to the body of research 

around their work. REDF, for example, set up 

REDFworkshop.org and SE4Jobs.org knowledge 

sharing websites that contributed widespread expertise 

to the field. AIDS United subgrantee Christie’s Place 

presented the results of its control group study at 

conferences and networked with other organizations 

there, conducted a half-day workshop focused on the 

intersection of HIV and violence, and participated in 

related webinars. Increasing the visibility of evidencebased evaluation results helped subgrantees obtain 

funding to grow and scale programs and contributed to 

more investment in the field as a whole.
nationalservice.gov/research 10

Recommendations for grantees to support subgrantees in scaling: 

 Leverage grantee standing in the field to promote the work of subgrantees to existing funding 

networks and other potential funders.

 Help subgrantees develop the capacity to implement on a broader scale and obtain the support to do 

so, for example, convening partners to support implementation and helping them build the 

organizational infrastructure to meet scaling goals. 

The “Next Generation” of Scaling after SIF: State Street Foundation & Boston WINs

2010 SIF grantee New Profit, Inc. engaged State Street Foundation, a corporate foundation, as a co-funder and partner to 

support the Pathways Fund. Pathways is New Profit’s SIF initiative to invest in promising innovations to transition lowincome youth from high school through post-secondary education to productive employment. New Profit engaged its SIF cofunders in a learning network that offered direct interaction and influence with New Profit leadership and SIF subgrantees. 

Participating in this learning network gave State Street a variety of insights into the venture philanthropy approach, including 

the importance of evidence-based programs, strong management and leadership, and scaling. Based on State Street’s 

objective of increasing its social impact in its headquarters city of Boston, State Street leveraged knowledge gained from 

participating in Pathways to its design in 2015 of an innovative approach that became known as Boston Workforce 

Investment Network (Boston WINs). Boston WINs is a four-year, $20 million initiative to support five high-performing 

partners to enhance the odds for college and career success for students in Boston Public Schools. Under the WINs 

program, the company has also pledged to hire 1,000 Boston youth served by the WINs partners. In several ways Boston 

WINS represents an adaptation and scaling of a SIF program, with three key characteristics.

 Replicating what works. Based on what State Street learned from its involvement in Pathways, Boston WINs replicated 

key principles of the SIF and Pathways models, such as an emphasis on data and accountability, selecting and 

implementing interventions based on evidence of effectiveness, engaging strong organizations as grantees, and building 

an evidence base. 

 Adapting. State Street implemented the Boston WINs program with an adaptation of the SIF’s intermediary model. 

Similar to the way that New Profit funded organizations to implement the Pathways program, State Street funded 

organizations to scale the services of proven performers across the Boston Public Schools high school system. Although

State Street’s design of Boston WINs was informed by lessons gleaned from the Pathways experience, it also diverged 

from that model in significant ways. Boston WINs conducted a competitive selection process for its partners but did not 

implement the SIF-required full and open competition, instead identifying qualified candidates to participate in the rigorous 

application and due diligence process. State Street engaged New Profit to help identify and select highly qualified 

organizations to fund. Another key difference built into the Boston WINs model is the requirement that the five partners 

work within a network approach in order to achieve better student results through active coordination than they could 

achieve acting alone. As a major Boston employer, State Street was also able to enhance its social investment through its 

commitment to hire 1,000 Boston youth.

 Extending the impact. Boston WINs is now focused on enhancing the impact of its work through managing the 

collaborative efforts of the organizations it funds. Consistent with State Street’s commitment to invest in the communities 

where it operates, State Street funds organizations to operate the Boston WINs program only within the Boston area and 

requires them to actively collaborate with one another through the concept of “Coordinated Action.” WINs partner 

organizations are evaluated based on their ability to scale and to add value through participation in the partner 

organization network. The WINs network approach requires the partners, all of which have Boston operations, to share 

data, coordinate, and identify gaps among the populations served for increased positive outcomes.
nationalservice.gov/research 11

5. Conclusion 

As SIF participants implemented and evaluated their programs, they did so with the goal of growing the 

impact of their work to accomplish the most good for the most people. The SIF helped grantees and 

subgrantees better articulate what it means to scale—growing the number of people served, expanding to 

new locations, and expanding and deepening service. Grantees and subgrantees found that the elements 

of successful scaling included strong evidence, organizational capacity, services keyed to critical needs, 

deep local knowledge, and well-documented models. The SIF also provided participants with the 

opportunity, evidence, partnerships, and assistance needed to scale. The support SIF provided to grantees 

and the support grantees provided to their subgrantees were a positive result of the SIF intermediary 

model that led to expanded opportunities for funding, increased organizational capacity, and increased 

collaboration among partners. The conditions for growing impact identified in this brief serve as a basis 

for expanding the conversation about scaling programs that work. 

About This Issue Brief 

This issue brief was informed by discussions with the 

following people: 

 Maura Riordan and Melissa Werner, AIDS United 

(2010 SIF grantee) and Erin Falvey from 

subgrantee Christie’s Place

 Jerene Petersen and Kenzie Strong, Mile High 

United Way (2011 SIF grantee) and Richard 

Garcia, Valerie Gonzales, and Jim Pollicita from 

subgrantee Colorado Statewide Parent Coalition 

 Carla Javits, REDF (2010 and 2015 SIF grantee) 

and Sam Schaeffer from subgrantee Center for 

Employment Opportunities 

 Tulaine Montgomery, New Profit, Inc. (2010 SIF grantee) and Joe McGrail from funding partner State 

Street Foundation 

 Jeff Bradach, The Bridgespan Group 

 Meghan Duffy, Grantmakers for Effective Organizations 

About the Social Innovation Fund 

The Social Innovation Fund, an initiative of the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) 

under the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act, is a new approach by the federal government to 

address urgent national challenges. The fund mobilizes public and private resources to grow the impact 

of promising, innovative community-based solutions that have evidence of compelling results in three 

areas of priority need: economic opportunity, healthy futures, and youth development. 

The operating model of the SIF is distinguished by the following six elements: 

Innovation │ Evidence │ Scale │ Grantmakers │ Match │ Knowledge Sharing

Scaling Resources

The SIF scaling experience reflects and extends the 

field’s work related to scaling. Additional resources 

include:

 Using Evidence to Scale What Works: 2015 State of 

the SIF Report

 The Bridgespan Group’s Transformative Scale 

Resource Center

 Scaling What Works: A Learning Initiative of 

Grantmakers for Effective Organizations

 A Successful Prisoner Reentry Program Expands: 

Lessons from the Replication of the Center for 

Employment Opportunities
Corporation for National and Community Service 

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Washington, D.C. 20525

TEL: (202) 606-5000 

TTY: (202) 606-3472 

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