Replication Readiness An Overview

Size: px

Start display at page:

Download "Replication Readiness An Overview"

Julie Howard
6 years ago
Views:

1 Replication Readiness An Overview What is the aim of this guide? This guide aims to help social entrepreneurs assess their organisation s readiness for growth or replication, and in so doing, enable them to make more informed decisions about replication and what may be involved. This is an overview document only, a more detailed document with accompanying notes can be downloaded from the UnLtd Ventures website ( or visit Who is it for? Social entrepreneurs, senior staff, Board members, and stakeholders in growing social ventures; advisors, consultants and funding organisations. What will I get from this guide? This guide gives you a process to help structure your thinking about whether or not to proceed with replication. It breaks down key issues and highlights areas that require particular attention. It also aims to serve as a tool with which to discuss key growth or replication issues with other stakeholders in the business. Where next? Working through this guide should be the first step for an organisation in assessing its readiness to replicate. In due course this guide will be followed by a further self-assessment toolkit that will form the logical next step, looking at the range of replication formats and how you should go about selecting which is appropriate for you and your organisation. 1 Prepared by UnLtd Ventures Replication readiness overview / checklist 2 Choosing a structure for replication 3 Additional tools and documents to assist with replication Instructions 1. Go to page 2 and review whether the opportunity to replicate exists. 2. If you can answer the questions on page 2 positively, move on to pages 3 and 4, and assess if you and your organisation are ready for the replication process. Please note, there is a more detailed replication ready checklist that expands on all the issues raised here together with accompanying notes, and this can be downloaded from the UnLtd Ventures website ( or visit Terminology Some of the terms we use may be interpreted in different ways, so we summarise our usage here: Replicate means any one of a range of models of growth from a branch structure through to franchising and dissemination. Organisation has been used to refer to an individual project, a social venture or an entire organisation essentially it means the sum of the activities that you are seeking to replicate elsewhere. Replication Readiness An Overview (v 1.0, last updated 17 May 2007) Page 1 of 5

2 Is your organisation sustainable? Financially sustainable? Do you have a surplus of income over expenditure? Do you have a plan for the replacement of grant income? Will replica organisations be able to access similar amounts of trading income, funding and donations? Is there a stable demand for your services? Have you developed cash-flow forecasts and income/expenditure models? Operationally sustainable? Are your key staff in place and in stable employment with you? Are robust systems and infrastructure in place for your operations? Do you have the time and skills to start a replica organisation? Are the main stakeholder relationships capable of being transferred to others? Is the regulatory environment supportive and stable? The Opportunity Does the opportunity to replicate exist? Are you creating proven social impact? Is there a need for your solution? Can you identify the full range of impacts your organisation is having? Can you show that your organisation is achieving equal or greater impact than other similar organisations? Does the need you address exist elsewhere, either with other customer groups or in different geographic locations? Can you provide tangible evidence (both quantitative and qualitative) to demonstrate your organisation s social impacts? Can you articulate how your organisation will differ from other similar organisations? Can you provide strong evidence that customers/end users need what your organisation provides? And are willing to pay the price you are providing them? Is the need in your current community sufficiently addressed? Are there any other circumstances that would make this a good time to pursue the opportunity now? Do you address an issue that is part of a national agenda? Are there funding streams or potential partners already waiting for your solution? [These are not specific requirements, but may assist in addressing shortfalls elsewhere in your analysis of whether the opportunity exists]. Replication Readiness An Overview (v 1.0, last updated 17 May 2007) Page 2 of 5

3 Can you express your theory of change? A Theory of Change defines all the building blocks required to bring about a given long-term goal. This set of connected building blocks - interchangeably referred to as outcomes, results, accomplishments, or preconditions - is depicted on a map known as a pathway of change or change framework, which is a graphic representation of the change process. (Definition from Does you theory of change stand up to cross-examination? Is the evidence of your social impact aligned with your theory of change? Your readiness Can you transfer your knowledge to others? Do you know how your organisation achieves what it does? Do you know the core ingredients that make your organisation successful? Do you know which of these core ingredients are essential to produce the same social and financial outcomes with another customer group or in a new geographic location, and which can be varied according to local need? Can you articulate these core ingredients in a concise, compelling and easy-tounderstand way? How will you gather and transfer this knowledge? How will you resource the process of gathering and transferring knowledge both financially and in terms of staff time and provide any ongoing support that is needed? If you are considering a hub and spokes or an umbrella group model, is it financially viable to share knowledge with your replica organisation on an ongoing basis? Replication Readiness An Overview (v 1.0, last updated 17 May 2007) Page 3 of 5

4 Are you as the entrepreneur committed to make the growth or replication a success? Do you believe growth or replication is in the best interests of your organisation? Do you understand that in pursuing growth or replication you will almost certainly need to relinquish a degree of control over the running of the organisation? Are you willing to spend time and effort pursuing the opportunity, understanding that it will take a major investment of personal energy and resources? Do you have or can you employ the people with the right skills to manage the growth or Have you put in place measures to delegate sufficiently the running of the current operations? Your readiness Is your organisation ready for Is the rest of your team aware of what may be needed and committed to this process? Is your Board aware of what may be needed and committed to this process? Have you thought through with your staff team what the implications may be on them if you grow or replicate? Are they willing to divert effort and resources away from current operations? Are your Board of Directors / Trustees aware of the implications and committed to your plans for Do you have the right Board members in place to support your growth or Governance Are your governance structures, policies and procedures scalable to cope with your growth or Does your mission statement reflect the proposed activities? Do your corporate objects allow the activities? Infrastructure Do you have the necessary expansion space, if needed, in your physical premises? Are your customer management, IT, billing, payroll, monitoring and accounting systems scalable? Replication Readiness An Overview (v 1.0, last updated 17 May 2007) Page 4 of 5

5 About UnLtd Ventures ( UnLtd Ventures provides consultancy support to a number of outstanding social entrepreneurs, helping them to scale up or replicate their organisations. The individuals with whom we work have already established themselves as successful social entrepreneurs, either through our Level 1 and 2 Awards or independently of UnLtd. What UnLtd Ventures provides is the support and structures that will help entrepreneurs to grow local initiatives into robust and sustainable organisations, through scaling or replicating geographically or reaching out to different groups in the community. This includes providing advice on strategy development, business and financial planning and management, replication models, organisational structure and governance, as well as access to an exclusive group of industry specialists and mentors. We provide this support through our own in-house team of business consultants and experienced practitioners, as well as through partnerships with external providers of specialist services where appropriate. Where appropriate we will also act as a broker between our clients and providers of a range of different types of funding. About this research project UnLtd Ventures is grateful for the support of the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation and the Barings Foundation in funding and contributing to this research project. We also appreciate the input of Brian Smart of the British Franchise Association and Rob John (Director of the European Venture Philanthropy Association and a Fellow at the Skoll Centre), who along with many other individuals have contributed to the development of this project. Copyright This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License. To view a copy of this license, visit or send a letter to Creative Commons, 543 Howard Street, 5th Floor, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA. You are free to copy or adapt this work, provided that you: attribute the work; do not use it for commercial purposes; and that if you alter or build upon this work, you distribute the resulting work under the same or a similar licence. For the latest information, updates, and to sign up to our Replication Newsletter, visit the UnLtd website ( and follow the links to Ventures and the Replication Study. Replication Readiness An Overview (v 1.0, last updated 17 May 2007) Page 5 of 5

Persistent Identifier and Linking Infrastructure (PILIN)*

Persistent Identifier and Linking Infrastructure (PILIN)* *PILIN is ARROW in Old Elvish within the ARROW2 project Nigel Ward, Technical Director 10 October 2006 DEST context for PILIN 2 PILIN objectives