The ‘scaling up’ process for any organisation can be a difficult journey, but how do you make that first step? Rohan Martryes of CAN Invest thinks that scaling up in practice is… well, a matter of continual practice.

The first year or two of being a new organisation is exciting. You’re establishing good relationships with investors, suppliers, and partners. You and your idea are starting to stand on your own two feet and most importantly, you’re beginning to make a real difference to the people you set out to help.

So how do you secure the future of your organisation for yourself and your stakeholders and continue moving forward? What, for you, is scaling up?

In previous articles, I’ve looked at the importance of an impact-led strategy and breaking down the barriers to help guide your organisation to sustainable growth. But how do you put that into practice to make yourself sustainable not just in name, but in nature?

1. Reviewing your social impact

We suggest you start by looking at your social impact measurement and what results it has yielded. From these you’ll be able to find areas where you can grow impact. This is a key step to learning where you must focus your energy when considering sustainability. If, for example, a project isn’t delivering results and is not key to the mission success of your organisation, then consider ditching it. The best impact is delivered when organisations focus on their end users and what is working for them.

2. Consolidating your resources to deliver

Another key step is to look at where to consolidate your resources. By consolidating I mean taking stock, and making sure your organisation’s assets aren’t spread too thin, but also that they’re not spread too thick and being under-utilised.  

One way to do this to go through a ‘business process’ review with your staff and volunteers. This involves mapping out when and how your different resources and assets are used in key activities delivered by your organization.

It’s a technique used by organisations to spot obvious opportunities to create efficiencies. When assessing this, don’t think too narrowly, because resources and assets can come in many forms:

• Staff & volunteers
• Wider networks of supporters
• Property (leased or owned)
• Finance/investment
• Your business plans and processes
• Publicity/Awareness

By reviewing your social impact and consolidating your resources to deliver, you can help make sure your organisation is well placed for the present but also to plan growth long into the future.

Scaling up in practice

At this point in your organisation’s life, you might be looking for more investment. In my experience at CAN Invest, I have found that for ‘post start-up’ organisations, support is limited. Investors can get excited about start-ups in their fledgling years, but often that support and finance only lasts as long as the excitement does.

Beyond that initial period, growing your organisation and becoming sustainable can feel like an uphill struggle. It isn’t easy, because scaling up should be a considered and thoroughly planned move that involves different skill sets and even attitudes to the start-up phase.

Of course, the right support can be found to help make growing less arduous - scaling-up isn’t learned and developed by reading a blog post but through practice!

Just like learning a musical instrument, someone else can provide you with videos, theories and a lot more besides, but ultimately you need opportunities to practice.

This is why the latest ‘accelerator’ programmes for post start-up organisations – like our own CAN³ - are focusing less on rote-learning and presentations, and paying more attention to giving people opportunities to shadow each other through other people’s decision making. I call this ‘learning by doing.’

But however you approach it and whatever support you receive to do this, scaling up your organisation may not be something that is ever completed, but something that you continually practice.

Rohan Martyres is director of impact & investment at CAN, a charity trading as a social enterprise. CAN is an approved provider for the Big Potential programme, and runs CAN³ - a fast-growth accelerator programme for post-start-up VCSEs. www.can-invest.org.uk/can3

Civil Society Media would like to thank CAN for their support with this article.