Philanthropy is a Complex System

It’s a head spinning time to be alive: full of fragility and ingenuity, stuckness and movement, heartbreak and hope. We’ve seen, in real time, some of the ways in which difficult problems interrelate: climate change, disease, inequality, unemployment, poverty, addiction, violence, isolation, exclusion, colonialism, racism and trauma. There is no single cause. There is no single solution. There is an awful lot of messiness.

In our day-to-day lives, we come into contact with three types of systems: simple, complicated, and complex. When we turn on and off a light, we are engaging with a simple system. Simple systems are made-up of a small number of interactions that are super predictable. The same action produces the same result, over and over again.

Light switches are powered by more complicated systems: electricity grids. Electricity grids have a lot more moving parts, but those parts operate in patterned and knowable ways. Expert knowledge may be required to solve problems in a complicated system; however, the answers are knowable.

Complex systems, by contrast, are composed of both predictable and unpredictable interactions that operate relationally. Think of the energy economy, shaped by everything from weather patterns to technology to taxation & finance to human behaviour. What we refer to as "messes" exist in the realm of complexity.

Why? Because philanthropy is made-up of deeply encoded beliefs, relationship patterns, power dynamics, and resource flows, underpinned by legal structures and tax policies, which reflect broader cultural and economic forces. Typically, we tinker with the parts of systems we can see: the policies, practices, and resource flows. But it’s actually the stuff we can’t so easily see -- the relationships, power dynamics, values and beliefs -- which replicate and sustain system behaviour.

What makes human systems so complex is that they are value-guided, driven by multiple perspectives. Scholar Peter Checkland explains:

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  Things are in flux and unpredictable
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  There are no right answers, only emergent & instructive patterns
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  There are plenty of unknown unknowns
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  There are many competing ideas about what to do
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  There is no “off-the-shelf’ solution; rather a need for creative and inclusive approaches
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  Command-and-control leadership creates more discontent & disorder

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  Many pressing human problems are messy

  Messiness refers to a state that is untidy, unpleasant, and morally or psychologically confusing.
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  There are three types of systems: simple, complicated, and complex Complex systems require a different type of problem-solving approach.
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  Messes exist in the domain of complex systems

  When values, beliefs, power structures and habit interact to perpetuate a problem, we need systems thinking rather than scientific or technical problem-solving tools.
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  Philanthropy is a complex system

  Philanthropy shares the conditions of complex systems: policies, practices, and resource flows, relationships, power dynamics, values and beliefs.
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  Complex systems require different problem-solving approaches

  Whereas simple systems are made up of 'known knowns' and complicated systems have known unknowns, complex systems are characterized by unknown unknowns and interconnection with many shifting conditions!

Experiences & Observations

Thinking about you own week, which of your activities require you to interact and solve problems in simple, complicated, and complex systems?

Reactions & Impressions

How do you react to the idea that scientific and technical problem-solving approaches are inappropriate to the realm of complex, human problems?

Questions & Hunches to test

Apply the complex system checklist to a complex issue that you hope to have impact on. What are some of the patterns you see? How do you sense there are unknown unknowns?