Kelly Campbell, Mandy Taft-Pearman and Matthew Lee

Expanding a nonprofit organization by replicating its programs is a challenging prospect. The decisions you make today will heavily influence the impact your organization will be able to have down the road. But which decisions matter most? And how should you approach them?

Survey results, coupled with Bridgespan’s experience, suggest that the most important replication decisions are straightforward in theory and come with a host of conventional wisdom. They include selecting a legal expansion structure, determining where to open new sites, choosing new leaders, and deciding how to maintain quality. Importantly, however, the reality is more nuanced than the conventional wisdom would lead you to believe and will lead you to consider finely tuned differences in decision making roles, allocation of staff and board time, and more within your organization.