In times of increasing uncertainty, from shifting federal priorities to crises like the wildfires devastating Southern California, nonprofit organizations face growing challenges in sustaining their work and responding to the evolving needs of their communities. Recent federal actions, such as funding freezes and policy rollbacks on social services, have compounded these pressures. Many organizations are finding themselves navigating unprecedented instability, requiring them to rethink not just how to expand their work, but how to sustain it in ways that strengthen resilience, retain community trust, and address entrenched inequities.
This moment calls for rethinking scaling — not as a prescriptive, top-down process — but as a community-driven approach that prioritizes local voices, leadership, and priorities.
Foundations and their consulting partners have often viewed scaling through a top-down lens, focusing on replicating proven programs or achieving systemic change through carefully designed frameworks. These approaches, while well-intentioned, can fail to account for the nuanced priorities and experiences of local community leaders.
But what if we rethink scaling as a community-driven process — one that is led by those most directly affected?
This requires funders to shift from prescribing solutions to fostering environments where communities can lead, and involves investing in relationships, creating opportunities for shared learning, and supporting grantees in identifying and pursuing their own visions for impact and sustainability. This approach helps build trust with grantees and communities and enables funders to ensure they are scaling strategies that reflect the unique strengths and aspirations of each community, rather than imposing external models that may not align with local realities.
The Starting Smart and Strong Initiative
Since 2014, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation’s Starting Smart and Strong initiative has supported three California communities — East San Jose, Fresno, and Oakland — in a ten-year effort to strengthen early learning systems. Each community brought together public and private partners to address inequities in quality early childhood experiences, test new approaches to professional development and family support, and improve kindergarten readiness. Throughout Starting Smart and Strong, we partnered with the Packard Foundation on a developmental evaluation to understand how these communities developed their early learning support systems and to identify best practices for scaling effective solutions.
Starting Smart and Strong provides a compelling example of how scaling can center equity and local priorities by supporting communities in co-designing and testing locally-driven solutions. While Starting Smart and Strong was designed before the current wave of federal disruptions, its lessons offer guidance for nonprofits in other sectors navigating funding uncertainties, legal shifts, and political challenges.
Five Community-Driven Learnings about Scaling
Drawing from our work on Starting Smart and Strong, we share our “top five” learnings about rethinking scale as a community-driven experience.
1. Scaling looks different for different communities.
Scaling is not a one-size-fits-all process. Each community must define what scaling means in their local context, reflecting their unique priorities, challenges, and opportunities.
In Fresno, scaling meant spreading knowledge and strategies across educators, families, and community partners. Educators collaborated across agencies to share practices that supported dual language learners, addressing a critical need in the community. These efforts sparked interest and demand among others locally as well as statewide. Recognizing the potential of Fresno’s Language Learning Project, the State of California funded the expansion of its model, which is now used to inform statewide training and guidance for educators and childcare providers working with dual language learners — demonstrating how locally rooted efforts can influence broader systems.
By taking time to explore scaling in ways that resonate locally, communities can align their efforts with their strengths and aspirations while remaining responsive to their unique circumstances.
2. Communities need resources to test and learn.
Scaling is most effective when it builds on continuous learning. Communities need resources to pilot, refine, and adapt their strategies to ensure they meet local needs and deliver equitable outcomes.
The Oakland Unified School District’s approach to scaling began with instructional coaching for early educators, focusing on improving classroom practices. When data revealed that trauma significantly impacted children, families, and educators, the district developed the ROCK initiative (Resilient Oakland Communities and Kids) to address trauma through professional development. This approach was grounded in the community’s evolving needs and demonstrated how scaling can respond to real-time challenges when resources are available for testing and adaptation.
Communities thrive when funders invest in their capacity to learn and grow, providing the flexibility to refine strategies based on local realities.
3. Community engagement strengthens evaluation.
Evaluation should not simply measure outcomes but serve as a tool for shared learning. Engaging communities in the evaluation process ensures it reflects their lived experiences, provides meaningful insights, and strengthens collective efforts.
In response to communities’ need for a tool to reflect on and document progress in building early learning systems that support scale, we partnered with them to co-develop the Early Learning Systems Self-Assessment (ELSSA). Together, we defined what a strong early learning system looks like and tested and refined the tool to ensure it was practical, meaningful, and aligned with local needs. Community teams — including administrators and practitioners — now use ELSSA for both reflection and planning. By embedding their perspectives into the evaluation process, the tool became not just a way to measure change, but a resource that strengthened community leadership and collaboration in scaling efforts.
Ultimately, this approach ensured that the evaluation reflected the lived experiences of those within the system and helped communities identify priorities and shape their next steps in strengthening early learning systems.
4. Scaling must focus on systems, not just programs.
Sustainable scaling is about more than replicating successful programs — it requires strengthening the systems that support long-term, equity-focused change. This involves building leadership, fostering collaborative partnerships, and creating infrastructure to sustain progress over time.
In the Franklin-McKinley School District (East San Jose), expanding social-emotional learning (SEL) meant more than adding training sessions — it meant embedding SEL across the entire early learning system. The district integrated SEL into professional development, coaching, and cross-sector partnerships, expanding its reach from preschool to infant/toddler classrooms and early elementary grades. By working with Head Start, First 5, and other early learning providers, Franklin-McKinley aimed to create stronger alignment across settings. This demonstrates that scaling efforts are most effective when embedded within broader systems, rather than implemented as stand-alone programs.
5. Community-driven approaches build resilience.
Communities with strong local leadership, partner networks, and infrastructure are better equipped to adapt and respond during times of crisis. Investing in these areas is critical to fostering resilience.
Although Starting Smart and Strong was not explicitly designed as a crisis response, the resources, connections, and tools built over the years proved invaluable during the COVID-19 pandemic. In Oakland, trauma-informed practices were scaled rapidly to meet the growing need for mental health support. Meanwhile, in East San Jose, educators leveraged social-emotional learning strategies to support students and families as they navigated the shift to remote learning.
By strengthening local capacity and fostering adaptability, community-driven approaches position organizations to navigate uncertainty, rather than simply react to it.
Scaling is not just about increasing reach — it’s about fostering resilience, equity, and trust. In a time of shifting federal priorities, political polarization, and ongoing crises, nonprofits must rethink what sustainability means for their communities. Starting Smart and Strong demonstrates that when funders invest in community-driven approaches, they strengthen the foundation for long-term adaptability.
As organizations grapple with uncertainty, rethinking scaling as a participatory and equity-focused process is not only essential but urgent. Supporting communities in defining their own paths to impact enables them to navigate complex challenges while staying rooted in the needs and aspirations of those they serve. This work is difficult and often nonlinear, but it holds the promise of lasting impact.
Pilar Mendoza is a director at Engage R+D. Find her on LinkedIn. Clare Nolan is co-executive director at Engage R+D. Find her on LinkedIn.
