CONTEXT
GROWTH AREAS
SUCCESSES
OPPORTUNITIES FOR ACTION
CHALLENGES
FUTURE CONVERSATIONS
Systems change efforts are limited in scope, scale and effectiveness by intersecting challenges at all levels.
Unequal access to resources at the early stage of problem identification
The work of sensing, reflecting, and discovering hidden connections is familiar to everyone. It’s the exploratory exercise all humans do when engaging in a new environment. But there is a systematic bias in who gets financially supported to do this. Individuals with salaries from big consulting firms, large NGOs, Foundations or private wealth have the resources to map and build relationships between many actors across a space. Meanwhile, most individuals in communities, many change-minded consultants, or founders of under-resourced efforts can only work on initiatives voluntarily until they identify an idea concrete enough to attract funding.
““I’m often very inclined to approach things from a very bold vision level which I think I can bring the resources to realize - but I also recognize from working with amazing people, that on the ground level there are a lot of interesting efforts happening driven by visionary people that are not always having access to the right networks or distributions channels””
““I show up ready to strategize social change in a room filled with people who are getting paid and I’m not. And their fundamental relationship with me is to extract insight from me.””
This inequality of resource access is also across different personality types. More confident communicators tend to get funded more. This cultivates a tension between humility + confidence in the systems community where the work requires a personality type which appreciates the complexity and listens more than talking when dealing with the messiness of an issue, while the funding arena requires crystal clear, confident and straightforward presentations of ideas.
Community Foundations can play a crucial role in seeing the landscape of different activities within a region; often partnering bilaterally with multiple agencies who could be collaborating, and therefore are well placed to initiate and convene a higher-level program of work which links a system together (including businesses and government through their Boards). However, leveraging this capital effectively (social and other) can be tricky as Community Foundations must weigh all of their key stakeholders and have built genuine community trust. Otherwise, their position as a somewhat neutral convener/facilitator can be undermined.
Often a system-oriented entrepreneur or problem solver in a community may have a very unique vantage point from which to tackle interconnected issues, but they may not have the track record or be seen as credible.
““A track record helps a lot. We do use language that jars with our spirits at times, and we position ourselves as “experts” (though I don’t like to do this). “[Our agency] is an expert,” putting a bit of weight on. Playing the game that others who get the funds play. Sometimes I resist that. I rarely use this language, but if someone calls me an expert, I don’t resist… So there’s this dilemma. The track record is the big thing. There is a confidence that we have, where we do the calculations of ‘what kind of people do we need to work for us, what sorts of organizational capacities do we need for learning,’ etc. So we can say with confidence: ‘this is what it costs to do this kind of work.’””
People who want to affect change at a large scale are most likely to do so if they have deep, experiential understanding of the issues involved, but it is not easy to communicate what impact you will have while exploring the characteristics and needs of a place, community or system.
““Problem and question identification is a largely underrated skill. People jump to solutions. People generally don’t see the value of investing in a pipeline of people to develop ideas. It’s much harder to address a problem that you haven’t experienced - you need to be an anthropologist - you need to spend a lot of time - you need to embed yourself in the problem. Our folks often say ‘I don’t need help starting up,’ but we give people the space to check assumptions and say ‘are you solving the right problem for the right person.’””
Systems work involves a challenging tension between “Ideas” and “Questions” that makes it hard to communicate strategy.
Human beings love ideas. When we experience a phenomenon, we need to give it a name and a causal explanation immediately, even if we only do so internally. This is how we make meaning out of our experiences.
But, trying to shift the big picture and work on systemic issues is often about open-minded discovery, constant learning, and frequent abandonment of ideas. It is about living in questions and treating every choice as a hypothesis.
This conflict makes it hard to communicate strategy. We are excited and inspired by clear stories and clear concepts, but it is difficult to communicate with clarity and confidence about where a piece of work is going when the nature of the work is continuously changing due to constant learning, especially when it’s about building a field and a set of relationships that create possibilities.
The multidimensional nature of working on changing big picture issues in society including policy, services, culture, organizational strategies and personal development/leadership approaches through a coordinated approach makes it difficult to name and raise awareness of people who do this kind of work.
““We do need to get the “questioning” mindset into funding institutions. How can we support funders to not just to fund the shiny new idea, but fund entrepreneurs who pay attention to the system dynamics associated with the domain they want to work in?””
Legalities & regulations can limit the types of funding relationships which can be created.
For foundations, legal and administrative requirements can constrain what can be funded, which can limit creativity and flexibility. The issue is complex; many of these requirements are in place for legal reasons or internal capacity issues, while others are the legacies of outdated assumptions about what can be resourced and how.
““Donors shoot themselves in the foot. If we were allowed in our budget to put into a reserve fund, for example, that would be the best thing for us. But they can’t do that. So everyone tries to work around it rather than admitting the approach is wrong.””
““One of the benefits of only being able to fund approved (charitable) organizations is that social innovation is not the type that business would tackle. We can make grants without an expectation of a financial return, and we’re not looking for one. But, we do bump up against the fact that the definition of ‘approved organization’ was developed long ago. It’s not a great fit for investments in the social economy.””
Potential for impact gets lost in translation & there is a lack of shared language
“Translating” adaptive systems language into more familiar technical language is an important skill, but it can also backfire. Finding a unique way to describe something can help differentiate it, but it can also obscure the meaning of what you’re trying to say. When we translate, we can wind up confusing people or failing to explain what is different about the systemic work we are proposing. We also risk giving the impression that working in a question-focused, open, systemic way is a phase rather than a philosophy. Additionally, everyone is puzzled over how to be understood and try out fresh explanations, which creates a fragmented fad-like landscape of new words discrediting decades of mature experimentation.
““One of the challenges of a field that is still discovering itself means that people have ownership over the language they’re using. Every little organization has their own words. This is ironic. To have ownership over language makes it harder for people to discover the field that is actually emerging. The response to complexity - no one owns. We’re all rising up to figure out how to care for the commons. If we privatize the approach to that... as a result of the consulting model and the funding model where people are competing for airtime ... then instead of making it about the work, it’s about the branding. That’s invisible friction.””
There is a two-way visibility challenge: Practitioners feel invisible, while funders look for a good pipeline
Prospective funders who would be willing to support systems exploration aren’t always visible/easy to distinguish from those who are less willing. Meanwhile, people who want to support systems change but don’t see an adequate pipeline of good proposals. Appropriate funders and systems change initiatives are not finding each other easily.
““There’s a discernment challenge in finding funding. My team is looking at 3000 funders, but I know only 12, or so that actually make sense for us. Is there a way to more clearly graduate the interests of funders? New language around different scales of investment? Mark them? Rate them? How can we cut down on the legwork that entrepreneurs need to do?” ”
Even experts with track records struggle to have their network weaving work understood. Specializing in facilitating an outcome as opposed to directly getting that outcome can make it harder to attribute work directly to the multitude of secondary & tertiary impacts. Funders & entrepreneurs alike are having this issue.
““These people would never find each other and would never do this work without us. It’s the hidden facilitator role. How do you get acknowledgment and funding if you’re hidden? Which of the activities can we point to and say, “we did that, that’s our impact”? What can be attributed to our unique contributions? All of it and none of it.””
Many systems change efforts are not supported long enough to demonstrate impact or show alternatives to the incumbent systems.
Many have difficulty with prototype sustainability after the initial phases of discovery.
There is an occasional mindset that working through questions is a phase, but it works best when embraced as a philosophy.
There are big questions as to how to best design sustainable resourcing for this kind of innovation. As funders must make ongoing budgetary and strategic decisions on when and how to curtail or end funding, this needs innovation & experimentation to explore what kind of resourcing models can create the most value in the long run.
““There’s a difference between getting funded to ask a question, then have it answered once and for all, and getting funding to continue to work in a questions-driven way. The first year of our funding was very flexible and question-driven, and now we’ve found a bunch more questions. How do we pitch the next phase? We don’t know if the answers we have now are the right ones. If you have that framing of intentionally framing as a question, it can still feel a pressure because people will want to have ‘an answer.’””
““One mistake we often make: we use up all the funders budget in the first year, then we have no more to allocate. We have so many 1-year projects for systems that take ten years to change. If you spend $1M in a year, you know they aren’t going to keep going. How can we spread this out?””