Think large and act small: Toward a new paradigm for NGO scaling up

Scaling up is about "expanding impact" and not about "becoming large," the latter being only one possible way to achieve the former. Thr experiences of five Indian nongovernment organizations (NGOs) suggest the emergence of a new paradigm of scaling up, in which NGOs become catalysts of policy innovations and social capital, creators of programmatic knowledge that can be spun off and integrated into government and market institutions, and builders of vibrant and diverse civil societies. We derail the mechanisms by which NGO impact can be scaled up without drastically increasing the size of the organization. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.