Sirum: Scaling a “Tech-for-Good” Medication Donation Platform

Description

Kiah Williams started SIRUM as a Stanford undergraduate alongside her classmates Adam Kircher and George Wang. Nearly two decades later, the medication donation nonprofit was now operating in five states across the country and had helped facilitate medication donations to reach 150,000 uninsured and underinsured patients. SIRUM’s technology enabled donors with excess medication supply to donate unexpired, sealed, non-opioid medications to those who needed it most. SIRUM had been largely funded by philanthropic sources and had secured funding through 2025. Williams was now pondering different growth paths for the nonprofit. SIRUM could attempt to grow quickly by expanding into new states or offering a wider range of medications. It could pressure test its pricing model. Or it could build new lines of business related to data, reporting, and compliance. The growth path was unclear. Williams wanted to demonstrate that SIRUM could be a model for social enterprises to succeed and achieve both deep impact and long-term financial stability. How should she build SIRUM’s growth strategy?

Learning Objective

The learning objectives of this case are: Scaling a business across geographic areas. Understanding tradeoffs associated with different growth options. Discussing how a nonprofit measures impact. Understanding how a nonprofit operates within the legal and regulatory environment of the healthcare industry.

Keywords

funding growth options Growth strategy healthcare impact venture nonprofit scaling Technology