Who wrote this, and how do they think?
Launching this project in September 2017, we were motivated to illuminate the fragmented work of systems practitioners (both within fund management roles and outside institutions) and provide some insights to help these professionals move forward in more effective partnerships with each other. From our own experiences, we knew that funding systems work driven by a “questioning” mindset can be very challenging for a large number of reasons. Both for the leader or conveyer and their partners, this work is confusing, jargon-heavy, fragmented and requires learning new ways of working to succeed fully. We have been working to understand all sides of this experience and find ways forward.
Team Background and Orientation
The initial tranche of this work has focused on engaging with peers around the world experienced in convening complex change initiatives using Innovation Labs and Impact Networks, Collective Impact, etc. Given the amorphous nature of transformative work, we felt it would be easier and informative to start with a cohort that already had a strong predisposition, and a somewhat shared identity and language around this work. As many funders are used to discussing things with more “early stage concreteness,” we decided to include this group more deeply after we completed this segment. We recognize that on some level this illuminates how it can be difficult to fund early-stage social research and development projects that are by intent not always clear and distinct at the onset.
Funder-specific perspectives to date include executive foundation staff, consultants for foundations, program officers, government fund managers, VC investment fund managers, university grant managers and independently wealthy individuals. As we move forward in 2018 with this effort, we will be reaching out to more people who manage money to balance and extend our understanding.
While the people with whom we’ve spoken represent experiences from around the world - including North America, Europe, South Asia, Africa, Australia, and New Zealand - we see our data set as only a glimpse into a much bigger topic, one which demands more depth and a much more inclusive voice than what we’ve been able to represent so far. We have not gathered fully representative data in any region, and what we have gathered has been primarily from mostly white European/ settler orientation; for example, this work has not actively sought to represent the voices of people of color or Indigenous peoples.
A Data Gathering Journey
Our approach to learning about this topic was to conduct semi-structured dialogue interviews with a wide range of people. This format includes a free-flowing element to allow someone to fully express themselves without interruption; allowing them to express ideas and concepts in their own framing rather than always in response to a pre-formulated question. It also enables people to contribute their ideas on key prompts provided. These prompts were sometimes offered as direct question and sometimes given as an opening framing of the conversation in order to direct the interviewee towards sharing their stories on a key topic. Most questions were phrased to elicit people to speak from anecdotal evidence and very specific experiences rather than broad beliefs. These prompts were each based on a research question.
The key areas of curiosity were:
Success factors of funding relationships when funding systems-oriented work.
Failure factors of funding relationships when funding systems-oriented work.
Language gaps, misperceptions and misunderstandings
Opportunities for improvement
Theory U & Design Thinking
Our approach to gathering this data and learning from it as a group has been inspired by Participatory Design Thinking and Theory U methodologies. “Suspending judgment” and doing “empathy interviews” help to make sense of the complexity of the information and challenge our own thinking by immersing in other peoples’ experiences.