Investing in systemic change infrastructure

PRACTICE UPDATE #2: Systemic Investing — from inspiration to action

Still inspired by the engaging conversations from January’s Systemic Investment Summit — thanks so much to TransCap Initiative, MIT Sloan and their partners for setting up such a thoughtful and inspiring conference with a truly collaborative spirit.

It sparked much reflection on pathways forward. Instead of sharing only what particularly stood out, I thought I’d share what we are now actively trying to put into practice. This is happening in En Vej til Alle (“paths for all”) where we are transforming the system of excluded and vulnerable youth.

I would highlight five elements — all of which pose huge challenges and where we really want and need to learn from others:

1. CREATING SYSTEMIC CHANGE INFRASTRUCTURE: at the conference we unpacked theories of change leveraging “a coherent combination of intent, mindset, and method, combining financial, social, human, and political resources in new ways” (to quote Dominic Hofstetter). Our version of putting this into practice consists of the following combination of activities:

• Creating and stewarding a portfolio of experimental development platforms…
• …Held together by continuous learning and renewal capability, increasing…
• …the possibility of systemic synergy through a shared innovation agenda…
• …enabled by a transformation-oriented funding collaborative, and…
• …a new dynamic, integrated and collaborative policy feedback mechanism

2. MAKING INFRASTRUCTURE FUNDABLE: a the conference, we explored how to go from investing in “single point solutions” to investing in enabling infrastructure with much inspiration from the New Capitalism Project (Anna Muoio and Brendan Lehan). At Bikubenfonden, we recognize the importance of investing in enabling infrastructure. In En Vej til Alle, we are experimenting with this on two levels: we are investing multiple parallel development platforms that collectively can work as nested leverage points enabling collaboration between organizations across sectors. And we are investing in a secretariat function that supports the platforms and orchestrates an overall transformation infrastructure.

3. INVESTING IN “MIND-SETTING”: at the conference, learning from CO Capital, we explored the importance of enabling a mindset among collaborative actors combining learning-orientation, experimentation and systemic view. But rarely do we invest explicitly in bringing this about as a premise for action. In En Vej til Alle, we are investing in multiple parallel development platforms to take action. But that can also collectively work as nested leverage points enabling collaboration while rehearsing a new mindset and way of working.

4. DEMOCRATIZING SYSTEMIC CHANGE LEADERSHIP. With much inspiration from the great work done by the Groundbreak Coalition supported by the McKnight Foundation, we explored how to democratize systemic change efforts — including how to redistribute power to the people we are trying to serve and creating opportunities to contribute at all levels. Led by Modstrøm and Social Development Center SUS, we are currently planning for making marginalized young people inherent parts of the overall governance and strategic drivers in the development platforms.

5. SETTING UP HEALTHY GOVERNANCE ECOSYSTEMS. In length of the above, much inspiration came from Rob Ricigliano from MIT Sloan Sustainability Initiative and his work on healthy governance ecosystems, Where governance is not just how we make decisions, but also include “being together, caring together, working together, weaving together”. This goes into our current work of creating arenas and processes that continue to maintain meaningful relationships and distribute ownership across the initiative. The leadership of this difficult work is in good hands with Akademiet for Social Innovation.

At Bikubenfonden, and with En Vej til Alle as one way of manifesting this, we have set a transformative societal intent. We are continouosly exploring what kinds of leverage effects we can create to support systemic change. In this process of developing and testing new theories of change and intervention strategies, we are eager to learn more from peers around the world. What does a more strategic innovation effort actually call for? What kinds of investing and funding architecture can help direct different forms of capital under a transformative theory of change?

If you are trying to deal with similar questions through new kinds of action, we would love to learn more and exchange notes. Don’t hesitate to get in touch at jcn@bikubenfonden.dk.

En Vej til Alle (translation “paths for everyone”) is a systemic change collective attempting to create new commitment and ownership dealing with the challenge of excluded and vulnerable youth.

Jesper is Director of Programs at Bikubenfonden and Co-founder of States of Change. He previously worked several years at UK Innovation Fund and think tank Nesta and Danish public innovation unit MindLab. He holds a PhD in Social Anthropology.