Launching Round Two of an Accelerator Programme: Supporting Innovations to Scale

This blog is part of a collaboration between the Humanitarian Education Accelerator and Elrha’s Humanitarian Innovation Fund (HIF). With thanks to Ian McClelland for his contribution.

In early 2020, both the HIF and the HEA are launching funding initiatives to support humanitarian innovations that are ready to scale, with the aim of increasing the impact and reach of solutions addressing complex problems, whilst building and sharing learning on how this is done.

In part one of this collaboration, we shared insights into our considerations for shaping these programmes and selecting projects. In part two, below, we focus on lessons learned for refining selection criteria and shaping an accelerator.

Following the announcement of funding from Education Cannot Wait (ECW), the HEA has been given the exciting opportunity to begin a new phase of the programme, including a new call for applications. For this call, we have benefited from being able to draw on a whole host of lessons from the first iteration of the HEA, in order to refine our selection criteria, modify the application process and, we hope, strengthen the accelerator as a whole. We have also been fortunate to be able to connect with others in the innovation space, such as the Humanitarian Innovation Fund (HIF), to share ideas and lessons learned.

Both the HEA and HIF teams have learned that when it comes to the selection process, whether or not you get it right can have a significant impact on the longer term shape (and efficacy!) of your programme. And, as is often the case when treading relatively new ground, in order to get it right, sometimes you have to get it wrong (or not quite right) first.

Taking stock of our experiences in the first rounds of the HEA and HIF’s Journey to Scale programme has allowed us to reshape and improve our programmes. Interestingly, a decision that both the HEA and HIF have taken, based on these reflections, is to introduce and strengthen a staged approach to our application processes. These stages allow us more time to understand and make assessments of promising innovations, the opportunity to give non-financial support to a greater number of shortlisted innovation teams, and to ensure that final funding support is given to those grantees who are truly ready.

The decision to take this approach has been informed by a number of key lessons learned:

1. Understanding the scope of funding: In the first iteration of the HEA, HEA funds were dedicated to developing research and data collection capacity within grantee teams, rather than directly funding project implementation. However, we found that this was not clear to applicants in the initial call for applications. Communicating and establishing clarity around the parameters of the funding might sound like an easy ask, but we learned that an understanding of the team and their scaling challenges was needed, as well as more dedicated time, to be able to provide a comprehensive explanation of the accelerator programme itself and the limitations of the funds. Having a staged selection process for the new round of the HEA will allow us to provide short listed applicants the chance to gain an in depth understanding of the HEA and the support it provides, before they progress further.
2. Unpacking and assessing applicants’ readiness to scale: In the experience of both the HEA and the HIF, a key factor for successfully and sustainably scaling an innovation is not just the efficacy of the innovation itself, but the strength and readiness of the team that runs it. For example, embedding solid data collection into pilot innovations in humanitarian settings — so that research and evaluations are integrated in the programme from the beginning, rather than being an after-thought — is only possible if the expertise exists within the programme team to do this. For pilot innovations that sit within a larger parent organisation, how accepted they are within that organisation, the level of engagement between the innovation and the parent organisation, and the flexibility of organisational systems to support the innovation, have proven to be crucial aspects of an innovations’ scaling success (see more on this in part one of this blog collaboration). So, similar to how the private sector selects promising entrepreneurs for seed funding, we realised our assessment of applicants has to be every bit as much about understanding the team and wider organisation as about the innovation. Staging the process allows us to build in the time we need to really get to know applicants, understand their innovation and their internal capacity before assessing whether they are ready for what the accelerator programme has to offer.
3. Strengthening proof of concept & scaling strategies: During the first round of the HEA we learned that an under-developed or weak proof of concept makes it difficult for innovations to participate in a rigorous evaluation, such as that offered by the HEA. We found that weakness in this area is often due to the fact that M&E capacity has a tendency to be limited for pilot innovations, who have limited resources for a full programme team to work at scale. Innovations are often run by small project teams that have additional workloads and lack the capacity to follow up on a two year research programme, which the accelerator offers. By spending time through the staged selection process, we can work with shortlisted teams to enhance their capacity to commence scaling combined with rigorous research. In the first round of the HEA, some of our first cohort also found it challenging to put together initial budgets and proposals to kick start their research as quickly as they would have liked. We have recognised that projects applying for the HEA likely needed support with further developing their proof of concepts and improving their baseline data entry points and metrics before we can adequately assess whether they are ready to scale. Similarly, the HIF has also recognised that many people who develop innovations do not necessarily have experience of scaling. By carving out time and providing dedicated support to help shortlisted teams develop their strategies, the hope is that all of the projects will be strengthened, improving the quality of applications for the second phase and ensuring that those who do not receive the full funding gain value from taking part.
4. Different stages of scale: The process designed by the HEA for our first call for applications also resulted in having innovations at different stages of scale within the same cohort. This was a challenge, particularly when it came to providing group support. To address this challenge in the new round of the HEA we realised we needed to build some measurement of the innovation’s stage in the scaling journey into the selection process so that successful grantees are at a similar stage and thus able to learn from each other as a cohort. Opting for a staged selection and support process allows us to build in this measurement by providing the opportunity for the HEA selection committee to spend time with shortlisted applicants to understand their innovations, provide them with remote and in person support to develop their full scaling and research plans and assess and select the final three who will receive the full grant funding.

Based on the above lessons learned the HEA has developed a three stage selection process (illustrated in the below diagram)

1. Stage One: up to 10 shortlisted innovations will be brought together in a week long Assessment Workshop, to discuss what the HEA is about and what the support offered could achieve. This first stage will provide us with the opportunity to bring mentors, M&E advisors and the HEA steering committee together to dig deeper into the scaling frameworks of the teams and assess whether they are ready for the HEA’s final stage of support in scaling programme implementation, research and building impact evaluations. The first workshop will therefore be about getting to know the teams behind the innovations so that the HEA can make better decisions on who to select to be part of Stages Two and Three of the accelerator.
2. Stage Two: Following the Stage One Assessment Workshop, five innovations will be selected for Stage Two of the HEA, which will involve in-depth mentoring support over 3 months, to further develop their scaling strategies and Monitoring and Evaluation plans. This stage seeks to address the issue of weakness around proof of concept and evidence building that can often limit pilot programmes’ readiness for scale. The support provided in this stage will also allow us to ensure that the final innovations selected for funding are at a similar stage for scaling readiness.
3. Stage Three: A final three innovations will be selected for Stage Three, to receive USD 250,000 each to support scaling and capacity building, as well as fully-funded external impact and process evaluations of their innovations.

Similarly to the HEA, the HIF is extending the first stage of Journey to Scale to encompass a five-month ‘Strategy Development’ phase in order to have the time to get to know the innovation teams and better understand the projects, and to help the teams develop their scaling strategies and final applications.

During the Strategy Development phase the HIF will work with ten shortlisted teams to develop their scaling vision and strategy, through a structured period of remote support and a workshop that will bring all of the teams together. The outputs from this process will form the basis for applications to the ‘Strategy Implementation’ phase, from which five teams will be awarded the full grant funding.

Both the HEA and HIF believe that the staged process will enable us to better support a smooth transition from experimental pilots to programmes that can operate sustainably at scale, by ensuring that the right base line capacity is in place within each team, before the full funding is awarded.

Download the handbook and apply for Journey to Scale and watch out for the HEA second round call for applications which will be launched soon.

You can also hear more about some of the additional lessons learned that have informed the structure of the second round of the HEA in the below video: