Of the estimated 20 million microenterprises in the U.S., FIELD estimates that about half face difficulties accessing capital and business assistance through traditional sources. Research further indicates that the microenterprise development industry is serving roughly 175,000 to 250,000 individuals, or approximately two percent of the microentrepreneurs in its target market.

Meeting the needs of this market will require the field to move from a structure of small, individual programs to one that enables growth in client numbers, greater efficiency in service delivery, as well as demonstrated effectiveness in business development.

Recognizing this imperative, some organizations already have taken up the challenge by re-tooling internal operations; outsourcing functions; co-branding and distributing products offered by other national, regional or local players; and engaging in mergers, acquisitions or strategic alliances.

Since inception, FIELD has encouraged, supported and tracked such efforts. Our work includes:

• Launching the Scale Academy for Microenterprise Development in Spring 2007;
• Compiling a set of resources devoted to the issues underlying scale and various scale-up strategies;
• Research into Models for Increasing Scale in the U.S, which included a literature review, a practitioner survey, and a convening of practitioners engaged in scale;
• An exploration of promising approaches to increasing the scale of microlending to U.S. entrepreneurs through the Scaling Up Microenterprise Finance in the United States project;
• Managing the Achieving Scale grant cluster from 2000 to 2002, which involved eight organizations attempting to expand outreach and attract significantly more clients over time.