Scale Accelerator: East Africa
Women's Economic Empowerment
A fully funded consultancy programme for established NGOs or social enterprises operating in Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania, focused on proven solutions that advance the economic resilience of women working in rural settings.
About the programme
Women engaging in rural-based economic activities across East Africa face significant systemic barriers – limited access to resources, precarious employment, and societal discrimination – that hinder their economic potential and perpetuate cycles of inequality.
To tackle these challenges, Scale Accelerator will support established nonprofits in Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania to scale proven solutions that strengthen the economic resilience of women working in rural sectors.
The programme offers fully-funded consultancy and training to help organisations develop the strategies and skills to scale sustainably and create lasting change.
Figuring out how to expand your impact to meet the level of need can be overwhelming, particularly when juggling strategic planning with day-to-day operations. If you want to scale, but cannot do it alone, this is for you.
What you'll get
Scale Accelerator has helped set over 120 organisations firmly on the road to scaling their vital work. Through hands-on support and expert coaching, you’ll be guided through all key milestones on the way to greater impact:
- Strategy development: Build and test a clear, robust strategy for scale that aligns with your impact goals
- Sustainable impact: Implement approaches that ensure enduring benefits for women working in agriculture and other rural activities
- Up-skilling teams: Optimise internal structures and processes and equip your team with the skills and tools to drive and manage scaling effectively
- Financial sustainability: Develop financial and scaling models for long-term impact, and identify approaches that will ensure sustainability as you scale
- High-quality delivery at scale: Identify partners and design systems for them to deliver with quality
Who it's for
Eligibility criteria
Scroll down to learn more about what types of interventions will be eligible to apply for the programme
Focus area
This programme is for established NGOs and social enterprises operating in Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania that are ready to scale a proven project, service, or programme advancing the economic resilience of women in agriculture and rural sectors.
Examples include, but are not limited to, interventions focusing on:
- Reducing barriers women face in their economic activities. These barriers could be societal, cultural, legal, or practical.
- Ensuring women are aware of and have access to services, products and information that will enhance their economic resilience.
- Ensuring or creating an environment which supports women to access their economic rights, or ensuring duty bearers uphold those rights.
We recognise that other types of interventions contribute to women’s economic empowerment. If you believe your work is a good fit, get in touch.
We can only consider projects in education and health if their main objective is to build economic resilience, and they can demonstrate a clear impact on this goal.
Essential criteria
The programme is intensive and works best where the organisation is well established, financially stable, and is able to devote significant time to the work.
- Programme, intervention or service must demonstrate clear evidence of impact and have been proven to work, and it should have been running for at least 1 year
- The programme, intervention or service must be a core part of your organisation’s strategy
- Be able to dedicate several days per month for 2-3 staff, including at least one person from the leadership team.
- You should be keen to look at how to take this to new locations, target groups or to have a greater impact on those you are already reaching.
If your initiative demonstrates clear impact, you are keen to scale the impact of your solution, and can dedicate the necessary resources, you’re an ideal candidate.
If your solution is at an earlier stage of development, speak to us about our Lean Impact for Scale support which focuses more on rapid testing and learning.
“We are now in a significantly more empowered position as an organisation to scale our solution than we were just six months ago.
”
Scale Accelerator participant
Ryan Borcherding, Theatre for a Change
Our impact
Scale Accelerator is our flagship programme, which has already enabled over 120 high potential organisations to significantly expand their reach and impact over the years.
The programme is based on our unique scaling methodology and consultancy approach, which we’ve used to support over 700 organisations across the world to scale up.
Accessed funding to pursue their scale journey after the programme, including unlocking new funding opportunities.
“They have helped us to design a functioning offer that will last longer. The barriers we have always had around funding have been reduced thanks to this.” (Scale Accelerator participant, 2019)
Expanded their solution to several new locations, geographical areas or communities:
“We didn’t have the capacity to get there by ourselves – it would have taken five years, but with Spring Impact’s help, it ended up taking twelve months.” (Scale Accelerator participant, 2022)
Identified high quality partners to work with to address a problem at scale:
“We have now formed partnerships with other organisations and can really see the value. Our ability to scale at speed and some of the quality of our work is due to Scale Accelerator” (Scale Accelerator participant, 2020)
Found ways to reach more people sustainably:
“We can now approach potential partners and say: here is the problem… We have the expertise, the tools and instruments for how to do that – if you can find a way to fund it, we should partner up.” (Centrs Dardedze, 2022)
Programme details
Local Associates
To ensure our support is rooted in a true understanding of the context you are working in, we are delivering the programme in partnership with associates with local knowledge and experience. These individuals will play an integral role offering guidance, support and challenge to optimise the success of NGOs taking part.
Time commitment
Expert Consultancy: At least 1 day a month for 3 – 4 staff, including at least 1 member of your organisation’s leadership team. For the person leading this work, it will be at least 3 days per month.
Leaders of Scale: At least 1.5 days a month for 2 key staff members, including at least 1 member of your organisation’s leadership team.
Both programme routes are free.
Consulting team
Our team is composed of specialised scaling consultants, with expertise in multiple scale pathways, including replication, scaling with government, working in partnership with other NGOs addressing a common goal, facilitating community adoption, and more.
Duration
Expert Consultancy: The consultancy will last up to 2 years, depending on your organisation’s needs. It will commence in April or May 2025
Leaders of Scale: The online training programme with be delivered over 6 months and commence in June 2025
“We have learnt a lot: setting an ambitious goal, figuring out how to get there using different approaches or swim lanes, and starting to create ownership by the SaveAct team.
”
Scale Accelerator: Southern Africa participant
Martha Stein Sochas, SaveAct
Any questions?
Here you can find out more about what we mean by 'scaling impact', the key differences between the two programme routes, the time commitment, and more.
What do you mean by 'scaling impact'?
We define scale as a successfully tested and proven solution being expanded to sustainably reach more people with long-lasting impact.
In other words, if your team is scaling a solution, you are dramatically expanding its impact in a way that better matches the size of the problem you’re trying to solve, in a way that is operationally and financially sustainable.
We will also support organisations to implement vertical scale, shifting policy, practices and behaviour at an institutional or systems level to better address problems. Scale up must address not only expansion, but also promote embedding innovations into policies, norms, programmatic frameworks, and operational guidelines to help create the conditions for sustainability.
At the start of both programme routes, we will help organisations to set clear objectives, defining what ‘scaling impact’ means to you and what success would look like.
How do you define women's empowerment?
Spring Impact defines economic empowerment as ensuring that women have control over the decisions that affect their income and economic security; access to services and products that affect their income; and equal rights across the economic spectrum.
It ensures that girls’ economic futures are not limited in comparison to boys, and they are afforded the same opportunities, rights and protections whether they are working, in education, or otherwise occupied.
You can see more information on how we view this for programme purposes, and the types of solutions we are looking above
Is there any cost to the programme?
No. This programme is fully-funded so there will be no cost for organisations if selected to take part in either programme route.
However, in return selected organisations are expected to engage fully with the programme including ensuring the buy-in of their wider internal team and other key stakeholders. You can read more about the time commitment here
What level of evidence do I need to apply?
In order to be ready to scale, your solution, intervention or service should have strong evidence for its outcomes, so it can prove that it’s making a difference and gain buy-in from potential partners.
The level of evidence required will differ based on the type of solution you are delivering. Spring Impact looks for clear qualitative and quantitative evidence of outcomes and a robust monitoring and evaluation process. The strongest forms of evidence are external or independent evaluations but we do not expect every solution to have this in place.
If there is a lack of evidence for the outcomes and impact of your solution, intervention or services resources would be better invested into developing this evidence before embarking on the scaling journey.
Where will the programme take place?
NGOs, CSOs and coalitions of organisations working in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda are eligible to apply for the programme.
The Expert Consultancy will be delivered through a combination of:
- in person workshops and meetings at the office (or a nearby location) of the selected organisations
- online workshops and meetings hosted using Zoom.
Leaders of Scale will only be delivered online through virtual sessions using Zoom.
What's the difference between the two routes?
Organisations participating on the Expert Consultancy route will receive hands-on support from a dedicated team of specialised scaling consultants and experts based in the region, who will tailor your journey to the specific needs of the organisation, and act as your critical friend over a longer timeframe.
The Leaders of Scale training covers similar content, and shares the same goal of supporting your team to develop and implement an ambitious scaling plan, but follows a standardised curriculum and relies on participants to apply the content to your organisation with lighter touch coaching.
Delivery Approach
- Expert Consultancy: Spring Impact will walk the journey to scale together with you, aiming to really get to grips with your solution, context, and organisation.
- Leaders of Scale: Two key leaders from your organisation are in the driving seat of your scaling journey.
Length of time
- Expert Consultancy: at least 20 months from May or June 2025 – December 2026
- Leaders of Scale: 6 months from June – December 2025
Time Commitment (see answer below for more details)
- Expert Consultancy: at least 1 day a month for 3 – 4 staff, including at least one of your organisation’s leadership team over 2 years. Often we find that for the key team member leading this work it can be up to 1 day per week at times.
- Leaders of Scale: at least 1.5 days a month for 2 key staff members over 6 months.
What is the time commitment?
We tailor our support to the needs of each organisation so it can look quite different from organisation to organisation. However, as an indication, the time required from you might look something like the following:
Expert Consultancy
For the up to 2 year duration of the programme, at least 3 – 4 members of your organisation’s team (including at least one member of the leadership team) will need to allocate a minimum of 1 day a month to:
- Take part in bespoke, collaborative workshops with your Spring Impact consultancy team both in person and online
- Attend regular check-in conversations
- Become upskilled in Spring Impact’s scaling methodology
- Spend time testing and innovating your solution and scale model
A nominated project lead will need to allocate up to 1 day a week for the duration of the programme.
Leaders of Scale
For the 6 month duration of the training course, 2 key staff members are expected to commit at least 1.5 days a month to:
- Take part in training sessions
- Attend 1-1 coaching with Spring Impact Consultants
- Complete preparatory and follow up work
- Facilitate internal conversations and workshops in their organisation
It is important to note that the suggested number of days above are indicative of the total time likely to be dedicated by an individual and may not be used all at once. For example, 3 hours might be spent in a workshop one day whilst on another day 2 hours might be spent exploring the scaling methodology in more detail.
Does my organisation have to be large and have a lot of capacity?
We will look to work with organisations who are best placed to scale their impact, and our experience shows that organisations with less than 10 staff struggle to participate fully in the Expert Consultancy route, or implement the plans we will develop together. If your organisation doesn’t have that many staff, you may find the Leaders of Scale is a better option as this requires less involvement from your team.
Does my organisation need to be led by women?
No. Although this programme is working closely with solutions supporting women, we welcome NGOs that are led by both men or women to apply. However we will expect to see how your organisation is ensuring the lived experience of women is informing the way you work and the solutions you deliver. That said, we particularly welcome applications from organisations led by women who are most at risk of economic marginalisation.
Can you explain more about who our target groups should be?
This programme is seeking organisations working to ensure women’s economic resilience. This could include solutions that work with girls, provided economic resilience is the primary goal, and the programme is not encouraging girls to leave education in favour of economic activities (see also our guidance around education programmes in the programme summary). We are happy to consider any solution that defines itself as working with women.
I'm not eligible for any of the programme routes. Is there any other support I could get?
Absolutely – check out Getting Scale Ready, a 5-week, online practical training programme designed to help you kick-start your organisation’s journey to achieving greater impact.
We are also able to offer similar support for scaling through our team. This could include deep consultancy, organisation-wide training, or something more bespoke. Please get in touch to discuss your needs.
I'm a funder, how can I find out more about supporting the programme?
People investing in social change play a vital role in ensuring great solutions can meet the size of the problems.
If you’re interested in finding out more about how this programme could support your grantees, how you could provide direct support to the organisations taking part or just want to know more. Reach out to our Senior Programmes Manager, Amy Cuffley, on [email protected].
Not sure it's for you?
Check out Getting Scale Ready
This practical training programme helps leaders ensure solutions are scalable, impactful and sustainable. It equips you with the tools, mindsets and structures to overcome the most common barriers to scale and create a plan to get your organisation ready.
Any questions?
Get in touch
Reach out to our team via the link below with any questions you may have about the programme.
Case studies
Learnings and insights
Previous Spring Impact clients
Scale Accelerator: Women’s Economic Empowerment
Village Reach focuses on designing responsive primary healthcare systems to improve the accessibility of health products and services to the hardest-to-reach communities. Through radical collaboration with governments, partners, and the private sector, we create sustainable solutions that are scaled and sustained beyond our direct reach. By working together, they have enabled 79 million people to access quality health care.
Scale Accelerator: Women’s Economic Empowerment
StrongMinds radically expands mental healthcare for people with depression globally.
Scale Accelerator: Women’s Economic Empowerment
A U.S nonprofit & Kenyan NGO that aims to alleviate poverty and build resiliency in the drylands of Africa. To date, the BOMA project has impacted +44, 000 woman and children.
Scale Accelerator: Women’s Economic Empowerment
BeadforLife provide business training, programmes and support that enables women in Uganda who live in extreme poverty to become self-sustaining entrepreneurs thus, improving their livelihoods and well-being. One example is the Beading programme where fashionable fairtrade products are created in conjunction with business concepts such as accounting and quality control being taught. We have worked with Bead for Life since August 2015 with the purpose of helping the organisation assess feasibility, develop a scale strategy and design a model for replicating their Street Business School (SBS), a programme that supports women to develop their capacity and business skills.
Scale Accelerator: Women’s Economic Empowerment
Village Enterprise equips rural communities in Africa with resources to create sustainable businesses and new business activities which promote environmental best practices. Through this, they strive to end extreme poverty in rural Africa.
Scale Accelerator: Women’s Economic Empowerment
Marie Stopes International (MSI) is one of the largest international family planning organisations in the world. Millions of the world's poorest and most vulnerable women trust Marie Stopes International to provide them with quality family planning and reproductive healthcare.
We work with MSI in Zambia on their Diva Centres initiative which is a human centred design approach to encouraging adolescents to access sexual health services. We are helping MSI to think about how this programme can be scaled and made sustainable.
Scale Accelerator: Women’s Economic Empowerment
At WEvolution, they nurture collectives called Small, Powerful Groups: meaningful, resourceful and accountable communities where everyone can be a change-maker
and an entrepreneur.
Scale Accelerator: Women’s Economic Empowerment
Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Inc. (PPFA) works to protect and expand access to sexual and reproductive health care and education and provides support to its member affiliates. Planned Parenthood affiliates are separately incorporated public charities that operate health centres across the U.S. as trusted sources of health care and education for people of all genders in communities across the country.
Scale Accelerator: Women’s Economic Empowerment
Groundswell is a nonprofit which works to tackle homelessness by working with homeless people and enable othem to take more control of their lives, have a greater influence on services, and therefore set a chain reaction of togetherness and opportunity. We worked with Groundswell to scale the impact of their Homeless Health Peer Advocacy Programme that partners former homeless with current homeless, to ensure health appointments are met.
Scale Accelerator: Women’s Economic Empowerment
Silulo Ulutho Technologies have a social mission centred on bridging the digital divide through providing ICT services that are geographically and economically accessible. The organisation already have twenty six branches located in deprived areas of the Eastern and Western Capes of South Africa. Each café can serve 200-300 clients a day and Silulo have already trained over 12,000 students.
Silulo Ulutho Technologies was a participant in a South African Scale Accelerator programme we delivered in conjunction with The Rockefeller Foundation, Bertha Centre for Social Innovation & Entrepreneurship at Cape Town University and Franchising Plus.
Scale Accelerator: Women’s Economic Empowerment
Mayday Trust transformed itself from a traditional charity providing supported accommodation services, to a nationally-recognised voice for radical systems change. When Mayday heard from people that traditional services were failing to help and they were becoming trapped in broken systems, Mayday set about to transform the services it offered.
Scale Accelerator: Women’s Economic Empowerment
Save the Children runs world-class programmes to save children’s lives and challenge world leaders to keep to their promises to give children a brighter future. Save the Children is part of Rapid Routes to Scale; a unique group of stakeholders from the academic, social and private sectors, committed to ensuring people in low and middle income countries have better health by understanding how primary care can be scaled and acting upon it.
Members include ICSF, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, The Center for Health Market Innovations, GlaxoSmithKline, Innovations in Healthcare (formerly The International Partnership for Innovative Healthcare Delivery), Novo Nordisk, Merck & Co, Merck Serono and T-HOPE at The University of Toronto.
Rapid Routes to Scale undertook the first ever global in-depth study to identify healthcare innovations in developing countries that have the potential to be replicated to increase accessibility to affordable medicine. Find out more here.
Scale Accelerator: Women’s Economic Empowerment
RECLAIM is a social change organisation that challenges the homogeneity that exists in the leadership profiles across UK society and supports youths and the working class people.
Scale Accelerator: Women’s Economic Empowerment
The African Development Bank (AfDB) aims to spur sustainable economic development and social progress in its regional member countries, thus contributing to poverty reduction. AfDB funded a series of workshops, facilitated by the Social Fund for Development in Egypt, in which we participated by introducing social and micro franchising to the Egyptian market.
Through events and workshops, we discussed case studies, illustrated best practices, outlined financing mechanisms and drove awareness about the benefits of social and micro franchising to the country’s key stakeholders in large micro finance institutions (MFIs), corporations and NGOs.
Scale Accelerator: Women’s Economic Empowerment
Social Bite is a social enterprise running an employment support programme for vulnerable and marginalised people experiencing homelessness across Scotland