Going Deeper: Relationships and Systems-Based Changemaking
Recently, PACE had the honor of hosting the authors of It’s All About Relationships: Systems-Based Changemaking for a conversation with fellow funders. We set out to learn more about complex adaptive systems, understand how relationships drive these systems, and consider philanthropy’s role in engaging relationships — with particular focus on how to resource relationships. Authors Palma Strand and Malka Kopell of Civity and John Esterle of The Whitman Institute (and PACE member) offered an overview and lesson.
Taking the lessons a step further, we invited three funders to speak who exemplify the way funders can leverage and resource relationships in the complex adaptive systems frame. Kara Inae Carlisle of the McKnight Foundation shared how this looks in the community-based context. Angela Graham of Fetzer Institute spoke to Fetzer’s approach generally and how it plays out in a place-based context. Finally, Jonathan Gruber of Einhorn Collaborative touched on how they are thinking about building a field that bridges and supports relationships and how to advocate around that.
Between these speakers and the discussion that followed, the conversation was rich and provided many insights. Here are three insights we will be sitting with for awhile:
- John Esterle urged that philanthropy needs to make the case to explicitly value and resource relationships: “We tacitly or implicitly acknowledge relationships, but then when it comes to looking at measures of impact, it recedes into the background. We say ‘We thought you were going to shift the dial on poverty, but you’ve only built relationships?’ As funders, we need to be more patient and support relationships as they emerge over time.”
- Similarly, he makes a recommendation that we come into this work from a learning lens, not an accountability lens: “These are complex systems so we come into them with humility. We need less ‘I want to know what my money did’ and more of a systems frame. When we talk about trust and relationships in communities, how do we assess or measure that?”
- Kara shared McKnight’s journey of listening and learning in their community and how they relied on relationships in their complex system to strengthen their grantmaking. The McKnight team adopted a saying as a result: “It’s not just what you know but who you know it with.”
We thank John, Palma, Malka, Angela, Kara, Jon for getting our conversation started and we were encouraged how many funders attended and engaged in the conversation. We look forward to digging into this topic further in the future.
