Scaling up
Rotary members have heard a lot of talk recently about expanding, building on, and further developing what we do. And that means that scaling a project can’t be an afterthought. But how do you know if your idea has that potential — and how do you scale a project successfully?
The experiences of two experts provide answers. Francis “Tusu” Tusubira, a member of the Cadre and a past member of Rotary’s Strategic Planning Committee, helped choose the first two recipients of the $2 million Programs of Scale award. And Carolyn Johnson, vice chair of The Rotary Foundation Cadre of Technical Advisers and chair of the Basic Education and Literacy Rotary Action Group, helped transform a textbook and computer donation project into an initiative that has trained instructors and significantly improved children’s literacy rates.
To begin with, Tusubira says, the potential to scale should be an integral part of every project. “If we are serious about our work, we should be able to recognize whether a project can scale up right from [the] moment we conceive it,” he says. “If the project isn’t scalable, it probably isn’t sustainable — and it likely wasn’t viable to begin with.”
He’s also emphatic about what scaling isn’t: simply duplicating what has worked before. Instead, scaling requires an understanding of why the solution worked so you can tailor it to the expanded scope — or different context — of the problem. One example Tusubira uses is traditional round huts in Africa, which are built to allow hot air to rise so that the living quarters remain cool. “If you’re thinking about scaling up such a structure in the same or other places, you don’t necessarily want to replicate it,” he says. “Instead, we need to ask ourselves: What aspects of the hut lead to the cooling effect, and how can be these be reproduced in a larger building or a different setting?”
Nor is scaling always about being able to present ever-larger numbers. Tusubira, a member of the Rotary Club of Kampala-North, has seen this pitfall: Nongovernmental organizations engaged in various medical and health care projects cite the increasing number of people they serve as a measure of success. “But if it’s simply about intervention again and again, you’re not changing behavior,” he says. “If you are systemically helping people get healthier, then the numbers you serve should actually decrease.”
So, what does successful scaling actually involve? Johnson’s experience shows that it includes being willing to reinvestigate an issue, doing a thorough assessment, starting small, and staying focused. That’s how she was able to lead the Guatemala Literary Project’s expansion from a single school in 2007 to one that now supports more than 900 teachers at more than 90 primary schools and involves more than 24,000 students — one of the largest grassroots, multiclub, multidistrict projects in Rotary.
First, Johnson scrutinized what Rotary was already doing: setting up computer labs and supplying textbooks for middle-grade children in the western and central highlands of the country. But despite these efforts going on for more than a decade, children in the area still had poor reading and comprehension skills. With more than 30 years of experience as a teacher and principal, Johnson recognized that the real work had to start earlier, at the primary level. But she didn’t just assume — she listened.
“One of the best things we did was spend a lot of time talking to people,” says Johnson, a member of the Rotary Club of Yarmouth, Maine. “I know Rotary members see a need and want to provide an answer immediately, but it really helped to take it step by step.” She talked to teachers and to Rotary members in Guatemala, who then connected her to the ministry of education and to superintendents of schools. “I wanted to find out what was actually needed,” Johnson says.
That willingness to listen is essential in scaling any project, Tusubira says. “You never want to get into a committee or group and say, ‘This is how you should do this,’” he says. “You need a learning cycle — not just a day of observation — where you get to know people’s challenges, their names. Everything must be built on trust, so that by the time you leave that community at the end of the project, a change has taken place, and the work goes on without you.”
Starting out small, growing incrementally, and keeping a specific focus also helped the Guatemala Literacy Project scale in a way that fostered success.
“It’s great to think big,” Johnson says, “but you have to learn the hard way sometimes.” Beginning with a smaller project and making changes as needed allowed organizers to improve it. “And even after that first pilot program, we grew slowly, taking on only a cluster of schools at a time.”
Johnson also knew the project didn’t have the resources to address other systemic issues that contribute to illiteracy — and that other organizations could do so more effectively. And although the training could have been offered at the country’s teacher training centers, Johnson thought it would be more effective if it took place at schools, where the results would be evident. This also served another critical purpose in scaling: Building local skills and expertise. The program still has some North American involvement, as well as significant funding from clubs outside Guatemala and through Rotary Foundation global grants. But a key to its success, Johnson says, is that it is led by “Guatemalan educators who train Guatemalan teachers.”
Perhaps most important is that by scaling carefully, the literacy project was able to cause a significant change in behavior. Teachers began to see results from replacing rote memorization drills with immersive exercises that engaged students in critical thinking. One instructor told Johnson that she and her colleagues were initially very skeptical, but she was convinced by the results: After a year of training, 45 of the 50 children in her class were ready to move on to the next grade.
Tusubira says the kind of behavior changes that result from successful scaling often require Rotary members to change their behavior as well. “We tend to look at what we delivered,” he says. “But we have to focus on changing behavior in the community, not just fixing an immediate problem.”
It’s hard work — but the rewards are substantial, and they resonate. In Guatemala, Johnson says, “children are coming into middle grades with better skills, so the programs that serve those middle grades are [accelerating], too.”