Staffing and Replicating: Two Essential Strategies for Social Ventures' Growth

Venture development and growth is an issue that no organization will avoid thinking of. Among seven organizational capabilities suggested in the article How to Take a Social Venture to Scale[1]

I consider staffing and replicating most important and fundamental.

In my opinion, for social ventures whose measurement of success is their impact, good staffing appears to be extremely valuable. Obviously, excellent staffing strategies can facilitate all kinds of organizations to run smoothly and effectively. Social ventures are no exception. What’s more, successful social ventures always require high personal qualities of their staff, because the charisma of the staff themselves can be a compelling indicator of the ventures’ influence. The author said in his article that, when it comes to the application of the seven capabilities, it depends on the venture’s theory of change and the ecosystem in which it operates. However, I will suggest every social venture take the staffing point into account, since every venture, regardless of its size, focus of area and organizational policies, has to rely on an efficient team of staff to push things forward. As articulated in It’s Not All About Growth for Social Enterprises[2], the success of a social venture should by no means be judged by its size, including staff size, budget size, client numbers and etc. Some people may claim that, in business world, for-profits also value efficient staff and functional teams. These people will ask why I consider staffing especially valuable and essential to social ventures. Here is my answer. The major difference between for-profits and social ventures in terms of staffing is that the success growth of a social venture can be reflected by the quality of staffing only, while the number of staff can sometimes serve as a measurement of success for for-profit organizations.

Another capability that jumps out at me is replicating. I think here lays another important difference between social venture and other businesses: businesses may embrace monopoly so as to get more profits in certain area, while social ventures always have to make it easier for others to follow suit in order to obtain broader impact. As mentioned in It’s Not All About Growth for Social Enterprises[3], once a social venture succeeds in its early stage, the next question it may ask itself is how to expand its impact by helping other organizations adopt the model. As a result, the whole industry will move forward and the entire world can benefit from the impact. One case in point is that Khan Academy, Coursera, Udemy and Edx have jointly provided easier access to education for the world.

To sum up, different social ventures may apply different combination of the seven capabilities so as to expand their impact. But I suppose staffing and replicating are two essential strategies that ventures should always consider, since they can contribute to development and growth in all kinds of organizations.

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[1], Bloom, Paul. "How to Take a Social Venture to Scale." Harvard Business Review. July 23, 2014. Accessed September 18, 2017. https://hbr.org/2012/06/how-to-take-a-social-venture-t

[2], Kimberly Dasher Tripp, “It’s Not All About Growth for Social Enterprises,” Harvard Business Review, January 21, 2013. https://hbr.org/2013/01/its-not-all-about-growth-for-s.
[3], Kimberly Dasher Tripp, “It’s Not All About Growth for Social Enterprises,” Harvard Business Review, January 21, 2013. https://hbr.org/2013/01/its-not-all-about-growth-for-s.