Our Teaching

Our core ideas on design and strategy to achieve lasting impact at scale.

So. You want to save the world, and you’ve started an organization that you think could go big. Maybe you’re just getting started, maybe you have been plugging away for a while. Either way, you can’t just do stuff. You need...

A Mission

The mission describes what you’re setting out to accomplish—and brevity = clarity. We want it in eight words or less: a verb, a target place or population and —most important—an end outcome. If it doesn’t fit the mission, you shouldn’t do it.

An Idea

An idea is a theory, really, about to accomplish the mission. It’s what drives and shapes all that the organization does. We look for new innovations, or important variations on proven ones.

A Dream

For us, “dream” is a technical term, and a marker for ambition. It is what the world looks like if the idea goes big and it specifies the “doer and the payer at scale.” The key that unlocks exponential scale is the ability to recruit and enable others to it and pay for it.

A Scalable Model

An idea needs a model—a systemic, replicable set of activities that can be methodically scale-up. To get to exponential impact, a model must be:

Good Enough

to be worth scaling. This is about impact: we're looking for consequential effect sizes, high-quality evidence, and a strong case for lasting change.

Big Enough

to make a meaningful dent in a big problem. This is about scope—the overlap of where it’s needed and where it would work, and what factors inherent to the model might constrain scale.

Simple Enough

that it can be done by others—specifically the doer at scale (mostly governments, sometimes other NGOs or businesses). The evidence for this starts with a replicable model and is confirmed by observable progress at replication by others.

Cheap Enough

that the payer at scale—government, philanthropy, customers, or Big Aid would pay. It’s about willingness and ability, not just cost-effectiveness. It’s about establishing a target cost and hitting it. Proof is when the payer actually pays.

Our Core Writing

Below are articles that go deeper on the core frameworks we teach our fellows. They're a good place to start if you're just getting to know us — these ideas have been honed over many years.