Making the government adoption of social innovations work (Stanford Social Innovation Review)

Stanford Social Innovation Review published an article on how small and medium NGOs and social enterprises can help the public sector successfully adopt and scale their innovations.  India’s adoption of a video-based, agricultural extension program pioneered by the NGO Digital Green is helping to achieve these goals. The study supports the idea that scaling through government is a viable strategy for smaller organizations to achieve impact, given the right environment and tactics, and offers lessons on how to do it. Regularly monitoring progress using a customized framework developed by IFPRI assists. This framework examines both readiness capacity for activities, as well as progress on outcomes for integration and institutionalization. The framework enabled Digital Green to systematically observe the successes and challenges in institutionalizing video-based extension, and take appropriate action with state and district governments.