System Leadership is a topic that FSG has been thinking about and writing about in the past few years – but we are by no means the only ones. We have a lot to learn from our clients, colleagues, and other organizations in the space. Here's one resource that caught our eye: Systems Change: A Guide to What it is and How to Do it by NPC’s Ellen Harries, Rachel Wharton, and Rob Abercrombie.
You can read more about FSG’s work on systems change in “Strategic Philanthropy for a Complex World” (referenced in NPC’s report), “The Dawn of System Leadership,” and watch recent highlights from a Boston event on the topic.
As Alice Evans, Director of Systems Change at LankellyChase Foundation recently said in a blog on NPC’s site:
“When we bring people together, when we support unusual alliances or partnerships, it is amazing how people start to believe change is possible, start to reach out to each other and work together—such as charities focusing on early years finding common cause with agencies working with adults who are homeless. Reaching out and finding these shared values is difficult—it requires trust, time, honesty, an element of altruism–all the things that when your organisation is fighting for survival can seem like ‘nice to haves.’ It is difficult. But as someone once said to me, change is going to happen anyway, so it’s far better to do it together in partnerships and supporting each other than alone.”
