System Change: Do We Fix the System or Change it Altogether?

In the nonprofit community, we often talk about our clients “falling through the cracks.” As a result, we spend countless hours conducting case management sessions to help clients navigate “the system.” But these are often only temporary fixes; the opportunity for better long-term outcomes lies in the system itself. If we fill the cracks and fissures in the system, we can make it easier for clients and the organizations serving them to be successful.

I have redesigned systems for more than two decades, first as a social intrapreneur at Phoenix House and American Heart Association , and for the past 15 years at Social Impact Architects. Through this work, I have learned that addressing the system itself is just a start. We also must focus on the people involved in the system and how it is created, maintained and improved. The graphic below tells the story that I often share in my speeches:

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Most social sector organizations focus on individual effort?—?trying to navigate a maze (the system) to reach the cheese (the goal). Both clients and the nonprofits that serve them are juggling many competing priorities, often with limited time to reflect on the bigger picture. We encourage nonprofits to start by collaborating with other social sector organizations (e.g., government, philanthropy, social entrepreneurs) to fully understand the system and work together toward coordinated solutions. True system change requires more than coming together; it demands working side-by-side (through forward and backward integration) on the issue to develop a joint solution. This might mean fixing the system to make it easier to navigate or reimagining it altogether.

Here are some observations from our decades of experience with collaborations of all shapes and sizes:

Individuals fall through cracks because communities are organized in?silos.

We have written in the past about why individuals face multiple, interconnected problems (e.g., health issues, low educational attainment, credit issues), yet we still have separate organizations to address each problem and often little coordination of services between organizations. At Social Impact Architects, we use ecosystem mapping to help unify efforts in communities. It identifies how we design an ideal system together, understand current opportunities and challenges, and work toward building a better system. Bridges Out of Poverty offers a facilitated process to bring together organizations from different issue areas (e.g., education, criminal justice, homelessness) to focus on collective success rather than individual achievements.

Institutions should rethink summative outcomes and focus more on formative outcomes.

We spend a lot of time talking about terminal outcomes (e.g., graduation rate, poverty rate, kindergarten readiness, recidivism rate), but there are many underlying factors that shape these outcomes (e.g., persistence in high school, multigenerational poverty rate). How can we better track the early warning signs and course correct before individuals and our community start to decline? How do we implement solutions, monitor progress and continuously improve? This is the same conclusion the Knight Foundation found in their seminal work on The Soul of a Community . Data is only useful if it leads to insights that inform better program design and evolution. What if we collect data at mid-points, identify likely failure points and adjust in real time?

Communities and the nonprofits trying to help them can have a poverty?mindset.

When I attended a Bridges Out of Poverty training , this “a-ha moment” was revolutionary for me. How many of our neighborhoods, communities and states are “just getting by”? In the training, I learned some indicators of distress include middle-class flight, lost manufacturing and rising food insecurity. When communities are faced with these challenges, it is easy to lose sight of the greater good. Nonprofits can also fall into this poverty mindset. Instead of helping struggling clients and communities, we fight for our piece of the pie rather than working together to grow the pie. We put Band-Aids on problems and chase money to feed our mission rather than addressing root causes . We give into power structures and design programs based on funder priorities rather than client needs. We jump on shiny, new projects instead of investing in our local capacity for impact and scale of proven programs. It is important for social sector leaders, funders and policymakers to recognize that our own mindset may be holding us back from accomplishing real change within communities.

It’s clear that people want “system change,” but sometimes “people change” is the hardest part. How many of us check our ego and logo at the door during collaborations and truly engage for the greater good? As the social sector, we must be open to adjusting our mindset as conditions change and as we glean more insights on what really moves the needle for communities. We would love to hear about your challenges in achieving system change and how you have overcome them in your community.