Taking Model Programs to Scale

Christopher T. Gates

Can the programs developed and implemented by one community be replicated by other communities? Or, more importantly, can these programs be replicated by many communities? In other words, is it possible to take what works well in one community and "go to scale"?

The short answer to these questions is, "Yes - but not easily."

Much of the National Civic League's work for the past 105 years has been premised on the idea that successful community-based programs can serve as models to be replicated by communities across the nation. We recognize and celebrate model programs in hopes that these innovative efforts will "go to scale." For example, for over 50 years, NCL's All-America City Award has showcased exemplary community-based problem solving efforts; under the leadership of past NCL chair John Gardner, we established the Alliance for National Renewal to provide a forum where communities facing similar problems can learn from each other's successes and support each other's actions; NCL's web pages describe model community programs and give contact information; and each year we profile successful communities in a special insert for Governing magazine.

Yet, we have found that even with all these mechanisms, models often don't directly transfer from one community to another. Although we've placed much stock in "spreading the word," we've come to realize that disseminating information about best practices often is not enough to ensure that these practices go to scale.

The last 15 years of providing hands-on technical assistance have helped us identify some reasons why certain communities successfully adopt programs, while others falter and stall. Each community approaches a problem from a different starting point: each has a different history, culture, and a different level of resources upon which it can draw in problem solving efforts. Yet, sometimes communities with vastly different backgrounds are still able to replicate each other's models. Contrarily, often a community which on the surface appears to be quite similar to another may be completely unsuccessful in replicating that second community's programs.

What we have found is that very often, the determining factor is the process which underlies a community's attempts to enact programs and thus to solve problems. Every community has a civic infrastructure - the complex interaction of people and groups through which decisions are made and problems are resolved. The quality of a community's civic infrastructure that is, how the community approaches replicating models, the way it engages in public discourse and makes decisions - has a tremendous effect on the eventual success that community has in replicating a program and solving a problem. Whether the specific issue is a quality school system, an air pollution problem, or lack of adequate low-income housing, certain principals and practices need to guide the community's attempts to deal with the issue.

First, successful communities are those in which the business, government, and non-profit sector work together to implement new ideas. For example, a model moderate-income housing development, successfully implemented in one community, will not get built when a second city council or a county commission passes an ordinance. It will get built when a coalition of community development corporations, financial institutions, churches, and government agencies collaboratively design and accept responsibility for the effort. The days where government, or for that matter, any sector of a community, can act alone are long gone; cross-sector collaboration is the key to successfully establishing community based programs.

Second, as community populations become increasingly diverse, individuals from previously excluded populations need to be made part of community program implementation and planning processes. At one time, a small number of major community players - people like the mayor, the city manager, the large local employer, the wealthy family that had been in town for generations - could sit down in the back room and make a decision or cut a deal. Now politically, racially, geographically, ethnically, and economically diverse stakeholder groups need to have their voices heard and their concerns valued.

Involving diverse perspectives may initially make program development and adoption more complex and add to the time spent during the early stages of decision making, but, by contrast, it can also help speed up the program implementation stage. Citizens want their ideas and opinions to be heard and to be seriously considered. The "ownership" of decisions by the community - and the willingness to assist in their implementation - corresponds directly to the level of participation in the development of these decisions. Project outcomes and policies are, in effect, "pre-sold" to the various interest groups and the general citizenry when they have had an opportunity to help decide policy options. Community stakeholders are not inclined to block implementation of a project that reflects their own interests and efforts. And, there is also little doubt that these fresh perspectives serve to strengthen our communities and make the democratic ideal real.

NCL has found that communities that ground program implementation on these and other practices not mentioned in this short essay - have greater success when working to replicate model programs. We also understand that these practices represent a new way of doing business; inclusion of multiple sectors and diverse voices runs contrary to traditional, top-down, exclusionary approaches to community government.

It's not easy for a community to change the way it has traditionally planned and implemented programs. Often an outside facilitator is necessary to help a community adopt these practices. But regardless of whether an outside facilitator is present, the community itself must take the initiative and decide that it needs to move in this direction. Successful communities are those that understand that addressing challenging issues requires different skills than those employed by previous generations of problem solvers. But as more communities come to this realization, "going to scale" will become a much more real possibility.

And, as we enter the next century, the need to go to scale is becoming more and more apparent. In the past decade, due to devolution of responsibility at the federal level, a host of social challenges that were once the purview of higher levels of government have fallen directly into the laps of community problem solvers. As communities throughout the nation struggle to address these challenges, the more we can share ideas, plans, and problem-solving tools - the more we can replicate each other's successes - the better we will be able to make each community in our nation, and our country as a whole, into a "Livable Community."

Finally, perhaps the help we can give to each other may ultimately be the most important factor when trying to go to scale. A community might realize that it has a problem and needs to establish a project to address that problem. It then may go in search of models used by other communities in similar situations. However, communities often find that direct replication is neither possible or desirable. But if the community is able to take relevant models and apply the lessons learned by other communities in the process of establishing their programs, then it may be able to construct an appropriate solution of its own. Thus, going to scale, in the end, might not so much be about directly mapping one community's project onto another community, but instead about helping each other navigate the changing problem-solving sea. Sometimes the value of the model isn't in direct replication, it is in sharing the lessons that have been learned in the process of establishing the model.

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