✔️ Pilot Error: Too small to fail.

Most nonprofits are tackling the complex problems that policy, markets, and or technology have yet to crack. Most solutions will fall in the realm of large-scale policy action and delivery of goods and services. So, it makes sense that donors seek to catalyze change through innovation and the funding of “pilot projects.” So why do so many pilot projects fail? Why do so many nonprofits seem to run on a treadmill of endless “pilots?”

Many pilot projects will fail because the incentives reward skillful grant applications rather than good project design. Some pilots fail because innovation adds risk and uncertainty. Innovative projects are more likely to fail when funding rules restrict project adaptation. Some will achieve middling success at a small scale because the applicants repackaged previous projects to meet the donor’s innovation and piloting criteria. Other projects will succeed, only to fail later because the high ratio of expert staff to beneficiaries and high unit costs bear little resemblance to the public service systems. In that sense, those projects are “too small to fail.” We hope for the rare projects that will prove an innovative solution to a persistent problem and simulate large scale.

The purgatory of pilot projects originates in the confusion of a ‘proof-of-concept’ test or demonstration with a pilot of large-scale implementation. A proof-of-concept may involve experiments, high staffing ratios, and investment in research. That is very different from piloting a proven concept at a larger scale in the hands of public partners with limited training and resources.

The solution is to design pilot projects with the users and beneficiaries at the table. Chart a roadmap from invention to implementation that considers constraints of politics, policy, skills, and costs. Proofs and pilots must invest in local partners to mimic delivery at scale rather than implementing demonstrations that are “too small to fail.” Organizations need the courage to acknowledge when there is bad implementation of promising strategies and try again. Grant applicants must resist the temptation to repackage old interventions as innovations. Should a donor only fund at small scale, nonprofits must engage them (and hold them accountable) to advocate for the next funding stage. The purgatory of pilot projects creates an illusion of innovation and progress. Long-term planning, local ownership, and design thinking offer ways to step off the treadmill.

Photo by Avel Chuklanov on Unsplash