Philanthropy is a System

A system has two or more parts that interact to form a whole. Systems can be small in size - eg. a cell - or large, like the earth. They can be social in nature, like families and communities. Not everything is a system, though. The parts of a system interact for a common purpose. As Systems Educator Linda Booth Sweeney explains, a laundry pile is not a system because if you remove one dirty tshirt it doesn't alter the way the pile functions. If, on the other hand she removed one of her own organs, say, her stomach, it would surely alter the way her digestion and her whole body work. Her stomach certainly couldn't work on its own, outside her body. Linda Booth Sweeney is a system.

We can't always see the connections in and between systems. We have to imagine those connections. Its those interconnections that make the system, the reason the whole is greater than its parts. Once we can map the connections in a system, we can begin to see patterns.1,2

The reintroduction of the grey wolf to Yellowstone National Park in 1995 has become a stunning example of the difficult-to-imagine and foresee interconnections of a system. Biologists are still trying to understand the trophic cascade - or the knock on effects of changes to a predator population for multiple other species in its feeding line - that they have witnessed. In one instance, the return of the grey wolf caused the elk population to move around more to evade its predator, which reduced winter browsing on aspen and willows allowing for their re-growth, which led to the expansion of the beaver population. The beavers build dams that create habitat for fish, recharge the water table and help manage seasonal runoff, contributing to a much more robust ecosystem. The cascading effects continue.3

Giving can be a simple and informal act, but it is also an act institutionalized and regulated by tax codes, legislation, disbursement quotas, investment markets, standards & best practices, and narratives - for example around family legacy, corporate social responsibility, and tithing. All of these components interact with purpose. Altering any one of them will have effects throughout the system.

The authors of The Waters of Systems Change are concerned with how foundations can have greater and more lasting impact on social and environmental problems.4

They go on to say that "As foundations consider the external dynamics of systems change, they must also recognize that this same water of systems change flows within their organizations as well. Any organization’s ability to create change externally is constrained by its own internal policies, practices, and resources, its relationships and power imbalances, and the tacit assumptions of its board and staff." In other words, as staff, volunteers, and philanthropists, we are not simply interacting with systems throughout our day, we are also microcrosms of those systems.

To change a system is to change ourselves.

Systems are very resilient and adaptive in the face of changes to their parts. It is in fact possible to remove a stomach from the digestive system and reconnect the esophagus to the small intestine. The body will still digest food! Less efficiently, yes, but the system recovers. In the Waters of Systems Change, Kania, Kramer, and Senge use a definition of systems change borrowed from Social Innovation Generation (SIG): systems change is “shifting the conditions that are holding the problem in place.” Because systems are so resilient, they argue that we need to be shifting the conditions of the system, working at three levels:

As we try to understand what shapes the system of philanthropy, we can find policies and procedures and org charts that are labeled as such, but to get insight into the level of mental models, we must surface core narratives that are sprinkled throughout everyday discourse as much as internal and public-facing documents. A shift in mental models, alongside, say, power dynamics, and resource flows can have a transformative effect on a system and help to unstick challenging systemic problems like inequality in more durable ways.

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  A system is about the interrelation of parts to form a whole

  Paying attention to interrelationships, patterns, and dynamics, as well as to the parts, is what systems thinking is about.
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  Philanthropy is a System

  When we make changes to a component of philanthropy, it has knock-on effects across the system.
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  Foundations should start by looking at themselves as a system

  We are of systems, not outside them. Foundations invested in systems change work should begin turning a systems thinking lens on themselves.
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  Systems are resilient

  We can make a lot of changes to a system without transforming it, because systems adapt and continue according to their own logics.
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  Transforming systems requires intervention on three levels

  Interventions at the level of mental models, alongside relational and structural changes, are essential to achieve more lasting change.

Experiences & Observations

When have you experienced philanthropy as a system made up of interrelated parts?

Reactions & Impressions

How do you react to the argument that in order to pursue social change, foundations should start by turning a critical eye on the system of philanthropy?

Questions & Hunches to test

Can you articulate or draw some of the implicit conditions for the system of philanthropy? For example, what are some narratives, logics, or beliefs that have endured over time? What are some newer, less dominant narratives?