Scaling Land Based Social Enterprises
We were funded by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation to look at how a range of a UK based social innovations had scaled-up, and what lessons land based social enterprises could learn.
Having an opportunity to expand what you do is always exciting, but as well as posing operational and financial risks, taking an opportunity to grow can challenge your goals, values or motivations.
We undertook research to identify five contrasting social innovations that had scaled up in order to understand what had worked, what had not, and the different ways in scaling up can impact on an organisation or an emerging social enterprise sector.
We identified five key tensions that social sector organisations need to navigate when making decisions about scaling up, and created a toolkit to help them make better decisions about scaling.
We produced three publications to help groups that are considering scaling up:
- A set of short case studies outlining the challenges and successes faced by five social innovations
- A set of thought guides outlining the tensions faced by social sector organisations when making decisions about scaling up
- A group decision making toolkit to help groups make better decisions about scaling
We run training sessions, workshops and webinars to support others to use these resources.
“The case-studies and thought-guides look really brilliant. It’s also very exciting that you already have so much interest in testing it from organisations ... I’ve been delighted to work with you” - Project Officer, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.
Want to keep up to date?
If so you can sign up to the Shared Assets newsletter for free and we'll send you an email once a month with our latest news and thoughts. Don't worry though - we'll never clog up your inbox with spam or pass your details onto other companies - we hate that stuff too.
Related publications
Research reports and publications written by the Shared Assets team
-
Scaling Land Based Social Enterprises: Case Studies This report contains five case studies, each exploring how a different community-led innovation in the UK approached the challenge of scaling up. It supports our Scaling Land Based Social Enterprise : Decision Making Toolkit. The work was funded by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. [Read the full report here]
-
Scaling Land Based Social Enterprises: Decision Making Tool Kit This toolkit aims to support land based social enterprises to make clear and confident decisions about scaling up their projects. It is based on research into previous UK-based social innovations and is supported by a set of case studies and a ‘thought guide’ on the issues to consider when scaling up. This work was funded by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. [View the toolkit here]
-
Scaling Land Based Social Enterprises: Thought Guide This publication explores what scaling ‘well’ means for social innovators. It is based on our research into how social innovations across a range of sectors have approached the challenge of scaling up. It supports our Scaling Land Based Social Enterprise : Decision Making Toolkit. This work was funded by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. [See the full thought guide here]
Related news and opinion
Blog articles, news and opinion pieces from the Shared Assets team