Excerpt from a terrific blog in the Stanford Social Innovation Review by Kevin Starr, director of the Mulago Foundation and the Rainer Arnhold Fellows Program.

I hate to be the skunk at the party, but look: The most urgent challenge in the social sector is not innovation, but replication. No idea will drive big impact at scale unless organizations—a lot of them—replicate it. And there are plenty of high-impact ideas awaiting high-quality replication…

Here’s the thing, though: High-fidelity replication is hard… You must be committed to and obsessive about the details.

Here’s an example of a replicator putting in what it takes: Living Goods is a well-known social venture that fields an Avon Lady-like network of dynamic village community health promoters. These promotors sell health products (including malaria and pneumonia treatments) door-to-door, doing health education and making clinic referrals all the while. The Living Goods model went through many iterations, working through core issues like supply chain logistical systems and the right basket of goods. It turned out that the most important they learned was how to hire and train great salespeople as health promoters…

Living Goods has grown to a respectable size, with 3,538 health promotors in Uganda and Kenya. However, for the model to achieve impact at real scale, others will have to join as replicators… The Living Goods model is complicated. Its systems, talent, and overall management are world class. If you want to get the same results, you need to be serious about it. You need to invest what it takes to do it right.

The entire blog by Kevin Starr is worth your time. And when a funder asks you why you can’t “just do what they are doing at such-and-such agency”, use this blog to help show why replication has real costs – real money, real time, real resources.

Also see:

• Fewer Pilots, More Scale: Making Digital Development Work
• apps4good, hacks4good, etc. not living up to hype
• Innovation & tech need to work for women and girls too
• hey, corporations: time to put your money where your mouth is re: nonprofits & innovation
• capacity building tools & resources for CSO strengthening
• I can still inspire old school