In my view, this will also depend on how exactly the charity is delivering its intervention. Two examples come to mind where I’d expect much higher cost-effectiveness later on than early on: (1) Tech-enabled charities (e.g. delivering digital healthcare training or facilitating migration) - you need to initially invest a lot into building the tech product, getting users, building partnerships etc. but then, if things go well, you might scale your impact exponentially while only growing your costs linearly. (2) Government advocacy and technical-assistance-type projects (e.g. advocacy to introduce tobacco taxes or assistance with rolling out syphilis screening) - you need to initially invest money into building partnerships and/or running pilots with no or minimal impact but, if your work is successful, you’ll have big impact later on, with comparable annual costs.
Yep I agree with the Tech example, except even as you scale there you’re likely going to need to continue to invest in government partnerships etc. After the initial investment there might be a real spike in cost effectiveness, which might then level out as growth continues.
I would consider the Goverment advocacy and to some extent technical assistance project more of a “hits based approach” (which is great) more than thinking about the framing of long term cost-effectiveness
I like these examples. Maybe someone could do a series of Graphs to illustrate how cost-effectiveness over time could work with different types of orgs? This could help donors and investors understand how their investment functions at different stages of org growth.
In my view, this will also depend on how exactly the charity is delivering its intervention. Two examples come to mind where I’d expect much higher cost-effectiveness later on than early on:
(1) Tech-enabled charities (e.g. delivering digital healthcare training or facilitating migration) - you need to initially invest a lot into building the tech product, getting users, building partnerships etc. but then, if things go well, you might scale your impact exponentially while only growing your costs linearly.
(2) Government advocacy and technical-assistance-type projects (e.g. advocacy to introduce tobacco taxes or assistance with rolling out syphilis screening) - you need to initially invest money into building partnerships and/or running pilots with no or minimal impact but, if your work is successful, you’ll have big impact later on, with comparable annual costs.
Yep I agree with the Tech example, except even as you scale there you’re likely going to need to continue to invest in government partnerships etc. After the initial investment there might be a real spike in cost effectiveness, which might then level out as growth continues.
I would consider the Goverment advocacy and to some extent technical assistance project more of a “hits based approach” (which is great) more than thinking about the framing of long term cost-effectiveness
I like these examples. Maybe someone could do a series of Graphs to illustrate how cost-effectiveness over time could work with different types of orgs? This could help donors and investors understand how their investment functions at different stages of org growth.