We refer to Collaborative Innovation as a form of Dialogic Systems Change to emphasize the fundamental process of continuous and shared meaning-making through dialog across organizational, sectoral, cultural, and political boundaries. The dialogic emphasis doesn’t devalue the need to use powerful diagnostic tools in both analysis and strategic formation, but instead emphasizes that deep, systemic change fundamentally involves people generating shared meaning and co-creating shared futures together.

Addressing complex social issues like homelessness and addiction requires a place-based approach involving diverse stakeholders with different perspectives. Engaging individuals with lived experience from the start is crucial in tackling these challenges effectively. The systemic design methodology combines systems thinking and design principles, emphasizing the importance of involving marginalized individuals in the design process. By implementing a Systemic Landscape of Practice Lab, which aligns various practices and supports economic self-determination, it becomes possible to address wicked problems while empowering those directly affected by them.

This fieldnote delves into the concept of visualizing experiment portfolios, discussing different ways to represent such portfolios effectively. It highlights the importance of diverse information needs, scaling up over time, and the various roles associated with managing portfolios. The document provides insights into tools for visualizing and managing experiment portfolios, such as Flourish Studio for data visualization, Trello for project management, and Dovetail for qualitative research. It also suggests hybrid platforms like Airtable and Notion as flexible tools to address multiple needs in managing and communicating experimentation portfolios.

John Githongo reflects on the challenges of anti-corruption efforts in Africa, highlighting the discontent with democracy and the rise in corruption perceptions. He discusses the impact of youth unemployment on these issues and the need to address the disillusionment with democracy among young Africans. Githongo emphasizes the importance of redefining the global anti-corruption agenda to tackle systemic issues such as economic mismanagement, debt crises, and inequalities, advocating for a more equitable geopolitical framework to combat corruption effectively.

The document highlights the importance of funding entire ecosystems in the philanthropic and international development sectors to shift power dynamics effectively. It emphasizes the need to operationalize grant funding in alignment with trust-based philanthropy and localization efforts to empower local organizations and movements. By focusing on systems rather than individual organizations, funders can democratize funding, prevent concentration of power, and support positive inter-organizational dynamics. The document advocates for transparent, streamlined processes, increased staffing, and ongoing feedback loops to ensure that grantees can drive their own agendas and respond to emerging challenges. Ultimately, funding multiple approaches and organizations within ecosystems can lead to more impactful social change and a stronger, more diverse community.

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Social entrepreneurs can use an ecosystems framework to create long-lasting and significant social change. This approach departs from the industrial organization economics framework, which focuses on gaining competitive advantage and capturing profits while protecting against new entrants and substitute products in a well-defined industry. An ecosystems framework, in contrast, incorporates the broader environment within which organizations operate. Self-Help is an organization that has made far-reaching changes by tackling a problematic ecosystem. To make ecosystem change more systematic, social entrepreneurs should create a map of their ecosystem that identifies all of the players and environmental conditions along with the relationships between them.

John Githongo reflects on his 30 years in the anti-corruption field, highlighting the transformation in global geopolitics and the shift in anti-corruption work over time. He discusses how the Western norms of liberal democracy and human rights shaped anti-corruption efforts in the 1990s, leading to a period of economic growth and political transitions in Africa. Githongo emphasizes the challenges faced today, as Western hegemony in anti-corruption work diminishes and new geopolitical shifts impact the fight against corruption, underscoring the need for a critical reevaluation of assumptions and strategies in this evolving landscape.

The document explores the concept of creating rigor in evaluations within complex environments. It emphasizes the importance of relational and participatory approaches in evaluating systems change, especially in situations where innovation and transformation are key. The text highlights the significance of drawing on shared values, cultural grounding, and inclusive practices to ensure credibility and relevance in evaluative work. Ultimately, the document stresses the need for context-specific rigor that is created through collective engagement and reflection, aiming to produce evaluations that are recognized as valid and credible by all involved stakeholders.

The document explores the shift towards an ecosystems approach to funding in philanthropy, focusing on experiences from foundations like MacArthur and philanthropic organizations. It discusses the limitations of traditional funding models based on siloed interventions and the importance of fostering societal transformations for Sustainable Development Goals. The narrative emphasizes the need for collaboration, cooperation, and co-creation within ecosystems to address systemic failures and support systemic shifts. The document also highlights the significance of funding new possibilities through initiatives that invest in ecologies, platforms, networks, and assemblages to drive long-term systemic change and societal impact.

“Ecosystem Investing: Achieving Impact at Scale” discusses the importance of understanding and altering social systems to drive social change effectively. Target’s strategic investments in education focus on scalability and sustainability within the social sector, emphasizing the need to view work within a broader ecosystem for impactful results. The shift towards ecosystem investing involves transitioning to new behaviors and assumptions, moving from transactional to transformational relationships, seeking understanding over answers, and embracing interrelation and unpredictability for collective long-term impact. By engaging various partners and adjusting approaches accordingly, ecosystem investing shows promise in addressing complex social challenges and driving population-level outcomes.

Investing in systems change capacity is essential for achieving lasting and sustainable change. Philanthropists have realized that concrete outcomes alone are insufficient, and true systems change requires embedding solutions deeply within the system itself. This involves building strong systems, developing broad buy-in within institutions, and combining responsiveness with a strategic approach. Examples from various philanthropies demonstrate the importance of investing in capacity, such as supporting community power-building efforts and building network capacity. Additionally, fostering buy-in and shared learning among philanthropic staff and trustees is crucial for effective systems change. Overall, investing in systems change capacity is key for achieving long-term impact and transformation.

Funding individual point solutions is not sufficient for improving system health. The current funding architecture prioritizes point solutions and creates competition among organizations for funding and credit. To address this, a new approach is needed that focuses on funding enabling conditions and system health outcomes. This requires building a facility that can holistically support system health, convene diverse actors, foster learning and collaboration, and provide system-level sensing and sensemaking. Additionally, new portfolios should be created that bundle system health outcomes, enabling conditions, and point solutions, with different time scales and types of funding. The role of financial capital providers should also change to increase transparency, accountability, and adaptive governance.

The document delves into the nuances of achieving higher, broader, and deeper level results, discussing concepts like self-efficacy and empowerment in the context of systems change. It questions the traditional hierarchy of results, emphasizing the need for a more network-oriented approach to understanding change. The text highlights the importance of considering interconnected factors and feedback loops for more robust and sustainable outcomes, advocating for a shift towards horizontal, configurational, and network-based thinking in the realm of systems change.

Humanity is facing layers of individual, intergenerational, and collective trauma that often goes unrecognized. This prevents us from addressing the root causes of our collective challenges and hinders our ability to heal and transform the systems that surround us. Trauma is pervasive and contributes to the stagnation of social systems, including child welfare, criminal justice, education, healthcare, and housing. However, trauma is largely absent from mainstream discussions about systems change. Recognizing and understanding trauma at a systems level requires acknowledging our own trauma history and widening our perspective to include collective trauma. Healing from trauma is a collective endeavor that can repair relationships, restore creativity and interconnectedness, and lead to new ways of working and relating to each other.

In this transcript, the speaker discusses the spiritual undercurrents of the community-building project called Microsolidarity. They acknowledge that people have defenses against religion and spirituality, and they don’t want to push anyone to believe something they don’t actually believe. However, they mention the idea of seeing oneself as inextricably entangled with others and part of something bigger. They also highlight the importance of shifting from individualism to mutualism and entanglement. The speaker aims to find practices or approaches that spark imagination and invite individuals to explore their own version of this interconnectedness.

The article emphasizes the need for new approaches to governance that are better suited to complex systems change. The author discusses two practices that can help governors and staff work more effectively in this context. The first is to capitalize on uncertainty, which can lower risk and increase chances for success. The second is to focus on creating the conditions for change rather than targeting specific outcomes. The author argues that both practices require leaders and staff to step into their work in ways that may be in tension with other experiences they’ve had.

Systemic worldviews shape our understanding of the world, influencing our sense of self, relationships, behaviors, and beliefs. They are how we see and interpret everything around us. Different lineages and cultural backgrounds contribute to diverse worldviews, with Indigenous cultures often having systemic perspectives rooted in deep connections to the land. Western approaches to complexity often prioritize predictability and control, while other lineages emphasize interconnectedness and embracing uncertainty. Embodying systemic worldviews requires unlearning and relearning, as well as reclaiming and reawakening our true selves. Healing from oppressive systems and power dynamics can be facilitated through practices such as healing circles.

In “Communication is Sacred” by Nora Bateson, the author explores the importance of communication and its role in shaping our relationships and society. She highlights the work of her father, Gregory Bateson, who studied how fascism takes hold of societies and the importance of contextual understanding in communication. Bateson emphasized that communication is more than words and is about the perception and combination of different stimuli. The author also discusses the manipulation and distortion of communication in the media and its detrimental effects on relationships and our ability to perceive interdependence. She suggests that a shift in our understanding and approach to communication is necessary for systemic change and building healthy relationships.

“Working Systemically for Transformation” is a blog that complements the short film series “Stepping Into Systems” on systems change. The blog explores how to think and act systemically in changemaking work. It emphasizes the need to hold change at multiple levels and to focus on both outer transformation and inner work. The practitioners interviewed discuss the importance of being embedded in the systems they seek to change and taking responsibility for intervention. They also highlight the role of deep hospitality, empathy, and truth-telling in transformative change. The blog emphasizes the need for collective and communal work, as well as the constant learning and reflection required in systems change practice.