How Social Entrepreneurs Zig-Zag Their Way to Impact at Scale

V. Kasturi  Rangan; Tricia  Gregg

Article | California Management Review

How Social Entrepreneurs Zig-Zag Their Way to Impact at Scale

Abstract

This article provides guidance to social entrepreneurs and their funders as they seek to advance the enterprise from startup to scale. It focuses on the evolution of four social entrepreneurs and their decision-making paths as they attempt to scale their respective organizations. It then develops a framework to understand how social entrepreneurs alternate between pursuing activities to increase the scale of their work and delivering social impact in a “zig-zagging” process.

Keywords: systemic impact; scaling; strategy process; Nonprofit Organizations; Social Entrepreneurship; Growth and Development Strategy;

Format: Print

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Citation:

Rangan, V. Kasturi, and Tricia Gregg. "How Social Entrepreneurs Zig-Zag Their Way to Impact at Scale." California Management Review 62, no. 1 (November 2019): 53–76.

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The case describes the 25-year transformation of Peabody Essex Museum, which was created in 1993 by the merger of two sub-scale predecessor cultural institutions, operating since 1799, in Salem, Massachusetts. Dan Monroe, its founding CEO, began a process of building the institution, which, when he arrived, had a budget of $3 million and an endowment of $23 million in 1993, as compared to a budget of $33 million and an endowment of $650 million in 2018. Monroe made changes in practically every aspect of the museum’s operations as PEM broke into the ranks of the top 15 museums in the U.S. All of this was happening at a time when museums in general had lost some 20% in visitation as a result of significant shifts in population demographics and what they understood by “cultural experience.” As Dan Monroe handed off the reins of an institution that had successfully run counter to trend to his successor in 2019, the trustees of the museum and its new CEO faced the challenge of how to keep the positive momentum going—and how potentially to reinvent PEM again for a rapidly changing world.

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How Social Entrepreneurs Zig-Zag Their Way to Impact at Scale

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