The world faces enormous development, humanitarian, and climate challenges at the very time when traditional sources of support are suffering major cutbacks. This puts a premium on ensuring that the available financing shifts its focus from funding innovative standalone projects to increasing the capacity of governments, social enterprises, and the private sector to deliver long-term impacts that address global problems sustainably and at scale.
International development and climate funder organizations play a key role in supporting the pursuit of sustainable impact at scale, but in the past, they have in general not focused adequately on the scaling agenda. Against this backdrop, the Scaling Community of Practice launched the “Mainstreaming Initiative” in early 2023 as a three-year “action-research” effort to study mainstreaming of systematic approaches to scaling in a cross-section of organizations that fund international development and climate action. This Synthesis Report provides a comprehensive and detailed overview of the findings from 28 case studies of funder organizations. The Policy Brief presents a summary of the main findings, lessons, and recommendations.