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Why is Difficult to Scale Efficiently?
One of the main challenges of creating social impact is doing it at scale. The cost of living crisis and high levels of inflation has created a situation where there has rarely been more demand for services and to create a social impact through social interventions as well as community and social projects. At the same time we have fewer resources to achieve that social impact. The hierarchy of social intervention is a strategic tool for understanding how and where we can create social impact most efficiently.
Due to high inflation and lower public spending, there is huge pressure on organisations trying to deliver social impact, to do so cost effectively, in sustainable ways. If we want to make a difference in people’s lives we need to do it as efficiently as possible. What’s more as I point out in my article on The Law of Misunderstanding as ideas are shared the number of misunderstandings, errors and mistakes, people make increases exponentially. Meaning that the more we scale up the less we understand about what made the idea successful in the first place.
The Best Quality Social Impact is Expensive and Doesn’t Scale Efficiently
“If the only tool you have is a hammer, it is tempting to treat everything as if it were a nail”
Abraham Maslow
When we create social impact typically we think of social interventions we can deliver using the tools most familiar to us. Often in the public sector, this will usually be an intervention on an individual by an expert. Such as a social worker conducting an assessment and managing a case. These interventions would be repeated over a period of time to check and improve progress toward living a better life.
Whilst there is nothing wrong with an expert intervention there is a limit to its cost and scalability. At a time when the cost of living crisis is creating a heavy demand and at a time when we have a shortage of expert workers and funds. There are only so many nurses, social workers, psychologists, physios, and other experts to go around.
The Most Efficient Scale are Communities & Families Who Know Us Best
We also all too often ignore the reality that we are one of many actors in people’s lives. So much of the culture and environment of the individual comes from other members of society. All the relationships an individual has whether it is from work family and people who they socialise with have a huge impact on who they are.
Even those with long-term conditions receive less than 1% of their care from a clinician. Meaning that the other 99% of care must come from the rest of society.
What is the Hierarchy of Social Intervention?
The hierarchy of social intervention (shown in the picture) is a simple model to help us understand the different layers of society and develop a strategy to deliver social impact more efficiently. The idea is to show the impact on the individual with the state being the furthest away and the friends and family being closest.
Limitations to the Hierarchy of Social Intervention Model
The hierarchy of social intervention, is a simple model. It is just a helpful guide and does not cover all circumstances. But showing community this way is intended to stimulate conversation and improve decision-making. It help us map the territory of social interventions so that we acting at the right scale and efficiency. It is intended as a prompt to help us think about what level the interventions we want to make to people’s lives. Too often we ignore the friends and family and the community in which the individual exists. Whereas these are the people who most mould shape and guide people through their everyday lives.
Society is Made up of Layers Of Interactions That Scale With Different Efficiency of Intervention
The Hierarchy of Social Intervention comes from the ideas I shared in my post ‘ What is Social Impact?‘ That society is not just made up of groups of individuals. Our social structures are emergent from society and have different strengths and weaknesses. These different layers have developed from formalising our social structures and relationships. Understanding the different levels in the model helps us think about and play to the strength of different parts of our society. The model also plays the role of informing our decision-making and moving the focus of decisions from ourselves. Centring the decisions from the perspective of the affected individual.
What Are The Benefits From the Hierarchy of Social Intervention on Efficiency and Scale.
The hierarchy of social intervention also acts as a guide on how we can reduce the costs of social interventions without reducing impact. We can ask ourselves which interventions are best taken lower down the hierarchy. Meaning that the experts can focus on interventions where an expert is most likely to be effective. This means the hierarchy of intervention helps us right size the scale of social impact interventions.
We can also look at the model to prompt us to think about who would spend the most time with the individual and what their role is in their lives. It helps inform those creating social projects to look at how we can improve interventions. Either to help the individual self-manage, or get better support from the people surrounding them.
Understanding Societies Efficient Scaling Problems With the Hierarchy of Social Intervention.
There is often a significant social impact where there are weakness in the Hierachy of Social Intervention. If the community layer is very weak for example. It will put ever more pressure on individuals and friends and families. As when they need help it is often blocked by services that don’t understand their needs. Where those needs could have been managed at a community level those needs escalate requiring more urgent interventions.
It also means that the state spends much more money on costly interventions that are ever more time limited. e.g. social care visits. Whereas the cheapest and most effective way to achieve those social impacts would be through community interventions. An excellent example of this is the low cost community interventions in Costa Rica, that have significantly addressed health inequalities at a much lower financial cost than other countries.
How the Hierarchy of Social Intervention Helps Us Scale Efficient Interventions.
I’ve written about how we can address these challenges with Social Enterprises and Not-For-Profits Creating a virtous circle of social impact. Enabling resources to be channelled into rebuilding and regrowing our communities. The point of the hierachy of social intervention is that trying to do the same thing using individuals is particularly challenging and from a higher level where the information is poorer is untargeted and expensive. Therefore the best place to grow community is either through family or friends or charities and social enterprises.
Example Using the Hierarchy of Social Intervention to Efficiently Scale Social Impact.
For example, if we want social interventions to impact obesity levels. A common state response would be: interventions from dieticians, clinical advise and an advertising campaign. At the same time the state typically ignores businesses that promote unhealthy eating. It ignores the role of the community, despite the evidence that obesity is linked to the relationships of the individual. It also ignores the roles of the community, creating role models to normalise unhealthy lifestyles. As well as not giving people opportunities to live healthier lives. (sports activities etc). The hierarchy of social intervention is that we are far better working through friends and families and communities rather than using expensive top down interventions.
Another example would be when addressing the cost of living crisis. We would provide expert financial advice, in the hope we will train people to look after their finances. Looking at the hierarchy of social intervention we should also consider social projects such as providing easy access to support and advice to their family. To help guide their decision-making on a day-to-day basis and support them in making tough decisions.
Planning Efficient Social Impact at Scale Using the Hierarchy of Social Intervention
If we can inform our decision-making about where to most effectively make social impact from the very start we can look at not just the individuals but their environment. As has been shown in Iceland focusing on a community-led approach can have large impact. Teens have gone from having one of the highest rates of drug and alcohol abuse to one of the lowest in Europe.
Therefore if you are part of an organisation that is seeking to make a positive change in society. Use this hierarchy of intervention as a tool to help guide decision-making. Open up conversations about how you can collaborate across our society to help create the desired social changes.
How to Create Social Projects
If you would like to use the hierarchy of intervention and others i recommend. I’ve created a complete guide to creating social projects where you can answer your questions and learn to master the art of creating social impact. Funding is also often a big challenge, so I’ve also created a funding guide. I also offer guidance and support to help you win funding proposals at edgeofpossible.com
Conclusion
We are at a point where we cannot simply scale up the same old solutions, as we lack the staff and the funding. The Hierarchy of Social Intervention helps prompt us to look at our social structures and inform decisions making. Wherever possible seek to engage with people across society to enrol and engage in creating real momentum for a change. It helps us right size our social interventions so they can efficiently deliver social impact at an efficient scale.
Learn to create change that flows: Discover more at edgeofpossible.com
Question
What are your tips for getting the scale right for social impact projects?
Other relevant articles for leadership and decision making for social impact.
Social Projects: A Complete Guide.
Create social projects by making sense of the world
Improve Social Impact with the OODA Loop