Since 2010, Hindustan Unilever Foundation (HUF) has partnered with nonprofits to identify scalable solutions to address India’s water challenges. Working with a range of organisations has given us a unique vantage point and, over the years, we’ve garnered a sense of ‘what works’ in delivering water security at scale. Scaling is less about reproducing results and more about isolating and understanding the underlying principles that drive success. These can include processes required to execute programmes, the organisational culture that underpins these processes, or a combination of both. Codification is the arrangement of these practices, processes, and principles into a system or code that everyone can follow. Codifying principles/approaches helps organisations re-use a solution consistently in different contexts without having to reinvent the wheel every time, as is usually the case.
Codification is not new. If we look at social sector organisations that have done this successfully in India, we can find great examples in the education and health sectors. For instance, Pratham Education Foundation codified the teaching module used to bridge learning gaps in students. It can be accessed by full-time, part-time, or remedial teachers to help students who are lagging behind. This method is now being used in other countries as well.
In the case of childbirth and prenatal and postnatal care, the health sector now has checklists and protocols that have led to drastic improvements in infant and maternal mortality rates. What these sectors have done is to codify the requirements for delivering results.
Codification can result in much-needed advantages for water conservation as well. For instance, frontline cadres are critical in driving behaviour change when it comes to better water use and agricultural practices. These cadres need not just technical know-how but also soft skills in leading by example. Similarly, when working with flagship government programmes to enhance water supply, nonprofits need to understand the state’s system, with its cycle of planning, approval, and budget allocation, as well as whom to engage with and when.
Typically, each new partner develops this knowledge for themselves. However, if they could refer to a ‘playbook’ based on the experiences and learnings of another organisation, the time for trial and error is reduced and they can become effective faster.
Funders should make the first move
As it turns out, nonprofits are busy doing what they need to do—executing programmes on the ground, working with communities, and driving social change. Their plates are full, and they often have limited resources to share their learnings with stakeholders beyond the programme.
As donors, we collaborate with diverse organisations implementing various programmes and can identify commonalities across them. We may be better positioned to see the ‘principles’ driving success and the challenges programmes and partners face. Over time, we amass substantial learnings on what works and what doesn’t in different contexts. For instance, at HUF, approximately 1,200 frontline workers drive behaviour change on water use across programmes. Thus, for us, codifying the most effective principles and orchestrating cross-learning between partners makes limited resources go a long way.
Communication design is crucial
It is not that the sector lacks knowledge or best practices. Almost all organisations we work with profile learnings in manuals, guidebooks, and programme documentation. However, accessing and using this wealth of information can be daunting. The material lacks navigability and often sits in documents or simply in the minds of people across the organisation.
Nonprofits do not always have the time, resources, or specialised communications expertise to compile and disseminate this knowledge effectively. This is why the development sector needs codification, led by expert communications partners who can design guides and do-it-yourself playbooks with specific building blocks in mind:
1. Multimedia and modular
For a codification playbook to be of real utility, it must be easy for end users to access, navigate, and understand. The format should be succinct, engaging, and user-friendly. A playbook can be made available online and can use a combination of multimedia tools—video, audio, text, and printable copies where required. Users should also be able to choose whether they want the entire module or just some parts. It should be possible for them to skip steps and dive into more material when needed. The material should be available as snippets as well as in detail. Similarly, these guides should be modular and offer opportunistic learning. People at different learning stages can use them to get updated on a specific theme or skill they need to know more about.
2. A strategic how-to guide
An impactful programme would typically have many moving parts. To ensure the replication of success, these parts would have to be unbundled so the core or essential component that accounts for most of the impact can be isolated. It could be a process, a routine, a principle, or a cultural mindset. Breaking it down into bite-sized sections or steps others can learn from becomes critical.
3. Descriptive, not prescriptive
A prototype being scaled to different contexts cannot resort to standardisation. Codification is not meant to tell our partners that there is only one way to achieve an objective. Instead, it is intended to be a directional guide. The idea is to take the learnings of an organisation that has done something well and share it with others who may need this learning. While the playbook acts as a guide, each person or team using it should also be able to customise and localise it after taking their cultural and regional nuances into account. It should allow different organisations to tweak it to serve their needs.
4. Iterative
All processes, toolkits, and playbooks risk becoming static and losing relevance over time. A good playbook should allow for the incorporation of new learnings from organisations or funders who test and use it. If something doesn’t work for them or if they’ve tried a different approach that does work, they should be able to add that learning into the playbook. The idea that there can be different ways of achieving similar impact is fundamental to scalability. A willingness to learn from success and failure is also vital for effective scaling.
We work in a dynamic ecosystem, and what works today may not work tomorrow. Therefore, codification cannot be a one-time effort and should keep getting updated collaboratively.
HUF’s vision is to use these codified playbooks as a platform where more and more partners add their own experiences or resources. The playbook should encourage transparency and openness and act as a document for the public good, ensuring funders and civil society organisations aggregate resources and combine capabilities while keeping solutions relevant to local contexts. These diverse layers, levels, and perspectives can help the development sector scale impact successfully.
