A key part of Global Gain's strategic vision is to share everything we learn with the broader social sector, not only to remain transparent, but more importantly, so that other organizations can benefit from this knowledge just as Global Gain and our partners have. For 2007, we plan to release at least two publications. The first will be released in the second quarter and will be entitled, Scaling-out through Adaptive Blueprinting: An introduction.

The second, Best Practices in Adaptive Blueprinting, will be released in the fourth quarter and will be based on our own pilot project, as well as a number of applicable case studies from throughout the social sector. If your organization has already developed and implemented a successful blueprint for social change addressing a serious social problem related to extreme poverty, please email us with the details and we will consider including it in our publication.

The advantages of the franchise model for scaling are similar for social sector organizations as for businesses, and yet the social sector lags decades behind in the utilization of the model. When businesses have a great idea or product invention, it must be protected at all costs for fear of competitors stealing it and profiting from it themselves. Since social impact rather than profit is the fundamental objective in the social sector, one would think the case would be quite the opposite-- that great ideas and models would be spread quickly from one organizations to the next. Unfortunately, this is far to infrequently the case. Social sector organizations tend to protect ideas nearly as much as businesses. A number of factors can be to blame:

• Competition for scarce funding leading to a desire to maintain an "edge" over organizations with similar missions
• A fear on the part of the originator of a great idea as to what will happen if others are left in charge of implementing it (e.g., will it lose some of its luster through poor implementation?)
• A lack of time and/or resources to share the blueprint with others and train them in implementing it
• The all-too-prevalent problem of egos getting in the way of meaningful collaboration (e.g., the creator of the blueprint is unwilling to share it due to personality clashes with other social sector leaders)

The advantages include:

• Considerably less upfront investment needed
  
• Risk is shared among franchisees or partners
  
• Product or service (or solution) can be scaled rapidly and effectively
• Partnerships become integral and therefore strengthened

The number of reasons why the social sector should be scaling-out rather than up far exceeds those for not doing so. The fact that they are not, however, means that Global Gain and the foundations and NGOs we work with will have a huge role to play if we are to spur a sea change in social sector thinking. By learning how to develop adaptive blueprinting strategies for innovative and replicable programs, we can all become catalysts to spur this much-needed change.

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