WISE: the Women's Initiative for Social Entrepreneurship

WISE is a global movement led from the global South to elevate the number, knowledge, and power of women social entrepreneurs in Ashoka’s network by redefining success and celebrating the unique ways in which women successfully lead social impact.

In 2011, WISE was formed at a gathering in Cairo of ten women Fellows from around the world during which the group identified avenues for collaboration and discussed how to advance the work of women social entrepreneurs.

3 Types of Scaling

When we reframe the definition of success in a way that better includes and celebrates women social entrepreneurs, we curate an ecosystem that is more likely to inspire and nurture women changemakers. To achieve this goal, the social entrepreneurship sector must consider the three types of scaling led by women innovators around the world, as identified by the WISE movement.

Scaling Up

When a social entrepreneur scales up, they influence laws and policies to affect generations to come.

WISE Fellow Nani Zulminari and her organization PEKKA lobbied the Indonesian government to legally recognize female-led households and expanded accessibility to courts to improve the lives of more than 40 million children from 19 million female-headed households.

Read Nani's Scaling Up Story

Scaling Out

When a social entrepreneur scales out, they reach new populations and geographies. This is the traditional definition of scaling, also known as the franchise model.

WISE Fellow Rana Dajani's "We Love Reading" model has been replicated around the world to reach more than 500,000 children and distribute almost 200,000 books.

Read Rana's Scaling Out Story

Scaling Deep

When a social entrepreneur scales deep, they transform dominant mindsets and cultural norms.

WISE Fellow Nawal Mostafa’s organization Children of Female Prisoners Association (CFPA) shed light on the formerly invisible population of female poverty prisoners in Egypt to transform the public perception of these women and their children from criminals to victims of an unjust system.

Read Nawal's Scaling Deep Story