Scope, Scale, and Sustainability: What it takes to create lasting community change

This article examines success factors that relate specifically to the ability of a comprehensive community initiative (CCI) to achieve the scope and scale required to generate community-level outcomes and to sustain those positive impacts over time. The CCIs selected for study represent a wide range of goals, strategies, and organizational structures. Six factors were found to cut across scope, scale, and sustainability. These factors include:

• having a single broker or entity that holds the vision ofthe change effort;
• clearly defined roles;
• alignment among interventions, resources, and geography;
• meaningful community engagement;
• competent leadership and staff; and
• strategic, cross-level relationships.