First off: Happy New Year!

Now, let’s get into the topic of improving capacity versus scaling up.

This is inspired by a comment from a colleague, who has been frustrated with their organization’s focus on scaling quickly, with little regard to making what they’re already doing, better.

I think it’s a complex issue. As an organization, you want to remain relevant and responsive to emerging issues, yet this can be at the expense of improving current programs and services while being being overworked, understaffed, and under resourced.

We see this with businesses that sell tangible products. There’s one company I purchase items from whose business scaled rapidly to meet the demands of new customers at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Their business exploded during this time because they sell body products (and we all need body products to stay clean). They’re also Black-owned, and many Black owned businesses have benefited during this time.

The downside was that the supply (and staff capacity) wasn’t able to meet the demand, leading to shipping delays and frustrated customers.

I’ve seen it in the nonprofit sector. Organizations (particularly smaller ones) have a tendency to make themselves appear bigger than what their capacity allows. This can lead to more funding, more collaborations, more supporters, more press, and more opportunities. I’ve stopped being surprised by organizations that are implementing large scale initiatives —whether alone or in partnership—with a staff of maybe 5 people.

I also saw this back in my micro/clinical social work days. In my department, the focus was on getting as many clients in the door as possible, with little regard to 1) staff capacity to do the tasks required of us by leadership and 2) whether the programs and services we promoted to clients were of quality.

We experienced high staff turnover. In response, the department began hosting job fairs to bring in more staff with the promise of lowering caseloads. Which never happened.

This experience shaped my approach to how I work with clients and partners, and I feel in many ways, I’m shifting away from helping organizations raise the voices of women and girls of color (their program participants) to helping raise the voices (and concerns) of staff. You can’t have a program without participants, however:

Programs and services are only successful when staff feel supported and have the capacity to do their jobs well.