Are we defining “success” in systems change philanthropy all wrong?

What if we shifted from predicting our impact to exploring a simple, powerful story of change: do no harm, do good, and sometimes do great?

How are we defining success?

Over the years, I’ve observed that much of our philanthropic practice around systems change is operating with an assumption: If we just fund the right people to do the right thing, focused on the right point of leverage in the right part of the system, we will fundamentally change the system.

This assumption is grounded in a history of strategic philanthropy approaches that seek to find the best points of action and measure their success in predictable ways. It is less relevant in messy, dynamic systems and contradicts a core characteristic of complex systems: changes in the system are emergent — they cannot be predicted with accuracy.

I’ve also observed our evaluations rarely give us the news we wanted. This is not to say good things aren’t happening as a result of all the philanthropic dollars going into systems change, but rather that our predictions about systems change are not holding true.

When this happens, we say to ourselves: That’s okay. We all know systems change is non-linear, interdependent, unpredictable, and messy. Sometimes we keep at it, finding a new point of leverage. Sometimes we give up and move on to other systems, other problems, other geographies, other grantees.

For a very recent example of this dynamic, see the MacArthur Foundation’s 2021 evaluation report on their intervention in the nuclear threat reduction system. Their theory of change did not hold true, nor did advocates see a pathway to their desired impact in their desired timeframe. Yet, good work was happening — MacArthur hadn’t funded the wrong grantees; rather, the context had changed.

So, if this way of thinking about success and measuring it continues to result in disappointing news, and sometimes problematic disruptions for those we are funding, how can we adapt it?

How are we changing how we define success?

One step in the process of adapting our way of defining success is to lean into related trends in philanthropy right now, including:

• The shift to using complexity thinking alongside systems thinking. Complexity theory tells us we should look at the whole system, not narrow to a specific, actionable place to focus. Complexity thinking balances the idea that we cannot predict what will happen with the understanding that systems change is not random. It says the future is uncertain, but we can learn from the past pathways by which change has happened and attend to emerging trends.
• The tough questions about power and role that many philanthropic organizations are asking, questions about just how much a philanthropic institution should be defining strategy, identifying desired outcomes, and finding points of leverage, versus releasing control over strategy and funding in ways that shift power over action and outcomes to those closest to the system and problem.
• The growing interest in enabling emergent strategies, whether at the philanthropic strategy level or enabling grantees to be more emergent and adaptive in their work.

Each of these shifts makes it more difficult define success upfront using our usual tools (e.g., clear theories of change and chains of outcomes). With this mindset, we may find ourselves…

• Funding a collection of partners who work systemically, share our values, and use many different tools to advance change.
• Funding a network of partners, and asking them to come up with experiments to advance toward a shared aim (but not a shared set of outcomes).
• Convening partners, creating shared learning spaces, building systems thinking skills, and funding our partners to act in new ways together with this new knowledge.
• Releasing our power by funding partners to do what they do best, recognizing their proximity to the needs in the system positions them to understand how to change the system better than we can.

The Art for Justice Fund and N Square Funders Collaborative are excellent examples of these types of strategies.

With these shifts, we face the same challenge: how are we defining success differently than in the past? You can also add the question of who is defining success! Regardless of the who, let’s make the assumption that in philanthropy will continue to need some type of definition of success for fiduciary accountability, learning, adaptation, and transparency.

It’s time to truly redefine success in systems change strategies.

Recently I was on a call about a collaborative systems sensing table — grantees and funders together. One of the topics that came up was the risk that grantees face if, in the course of collecting information about what is happening in the system and why, their organizations’ work is not discovered to be influential on the systemic changes being observed. Will this be evidence, in front of the funder, that they are the wrong grantees to fund?

My response was to question the premise of the statement. To me, the absence of visible, measurable impact of a given grantee on systems change should not lead to doubting their value. That is because I’m using a different framework for measuring success in systems change strategies, a framework with three simple levels:

1. Do no harm (to the vulnerable people, species, ecosystems, etc. that you seek to help)
2. Do good
3. Sometimes do great

Let’s unpack these ideas.

Success Definition 1: Do no harm (to the vulnerable people, species, ecosystems, etc. that you seek to help)

Our work is designed to alleviate or address harms against specific groups — vulnerable populations, ecosystems, species, etc. This first measure of success is essentially asking us to be careful not to move backward, to cause more harm.

• This might mean seeking to make sure we don’t unintentionally destabilize a school system in a way that leads to even lower achievement by underserved students;
• It might mean taking care that we don’t unintentionally incentivize shifts in government action that increase corruption instead of decreasing it;
• It might mean being careful not to put such a successful band aid on the problem (protecting against today’s harms without solving the causes of them) that we reinforce the status quo and decrease the will to change the system; or
• It might simply mean not funding a program that is causing trauma instead of alleviating it.

It’s a pretty basic bar to meet, right? It would be, except that in systems change work, it requires exploring potential unexpected impacts from the decisions we’re making, alongside doing the due diligence that we already do with organizations we seek to fund. And no matter how careful we are, sometimes we will fail on this measure of success due to the unpredictability of systems. While causing harm isn’t okay, it’s also inevitable, and when it happens, we need to discover it, learn from it, and alleviate the damage done if possible.

Success Definition 2: Do good

If we have identified a set of partners and we’ve done due diligence and thought about risks of harm, by the time we get to releasing funds we should be in a place where we believe the work we are funding is good work. In other words, someone or some part of the system will be benefiting in a way that aligns with our values.

Will all of that good directly contribute to systems change? Most likely not. Will all of that work be aligned with exactly what we’re trying to accomplish? Most likely not, particularly if we’re brave enough to fund general operating grants. But, it will be good work.

• This might mean we fund a leadership program that increases the number of BIPOC leaders in a given community without limiting the topical or systems focus of the leadership development.
• This might mean we fund secondary education advocates who build stable, lasting relationships with policymakers in multiple policy venues without predefining the policies or types of systems changes we hope they advance.
• This might mean we fund speculative artists to produce visions of the future that compete with Western ways of understanding future possibilities without defining the content, format, audiences or impact of these new stories.

Let’s circle back to that systems sensing table mentioned above and the question they asked: What happens if the work of grantees is not found to be contributing to systems change?

Any of the examples above could be solid, well implemented, meaningful work that is helping people, generating content that people value, building new relationships that can be tapped for many different beneficial reasons in the future, etc.; and it may well be that none of these interventions can be seen to contribute to systemic change. For example:

• Perhaps most of the BIPOC leaders ultimately focus their attention on issues well outside what we thought their leadership would influence, perhaps even having influence in other geographies.
• Perhaps the advocates explore upstream drivers and realize that the secondary education work they had prioritized cannot be addressed without a deep focus on poverty.
• Perhaps the speculative artists inspire a new generation of BIPOC artists to generate more political and visible art, without having visibility themselves in the current futures environment.

All of these can be good outcomes. The money was well spent. The world is a better place now.

Success Definition 3: Sometimes do great

In systems change work, every once in a while, the combination of partners we fund, the environment they are working in, the resources they have access to, the ways we support them with our power, and the relationships we have all developed add up to something great. Imagine if:

• One of the BIPOC leaders successfully runs for City Council and champions a policy that directs resources to low-income communities, transforming community infrastructure and opportunities;
• A charismatic leader from the program recruits community members across different backgrounds and beliefs, building an intersectional social movement that becomes a consistent influence on city policies and practices, gradually changing power dynamics within the city.
• The advocates build relationships within the executive branch so effectively that education policies begin to be implemented in ways that have significant impact on disparities.
• The advocates’ relationship with a specific policymaker transforms her thinking and she goes on to run for higher office, bringing new values and approaches with her.
• An indigenous futures story goes viral right as a larger policy dialogue about regulating artificial intelligence gains public attention. That combination — the power of the moment and the power of a good story — come together to trigger a new way of talking about the connection between the environment, people, and technology, contributing to a badly needed narrative shift..

Not a single one of these great moments is predictable. They are each unique, the result of a combination of uncontrollable factors coming together with the work of the organizations and people we funded. Yet, without the resources to take the initial actions — the leadership development, the advocacy relationship building, the futures story writing and promotion — the great things may well have not happened.

Now is the time to shift our definitions of success!

Now that you have a sense of the three types of success and how they fit together, let’s explore what happens if we use them, and stop defining success as a series of predicted great changes by the exactly right organizations we chose to fund. What is enabled when we ask ourselves whether, at minimum, we are avoiding harming those we are trying to help while funding things that do good in the world? What happens if we look for the emergent great successes, while celebrating all of the good happening along the way?

I suspect these mindset shifts help us trust our grantees more, spend less time being a “chess player” trying to control many different actions on the board, and spend more time being a partner, excited to see what emerges. I suspect these shifts free us up from imposing our own theories of change on others who see and understand the problem from a different perspective and allow us to value what our grantees are doing, learning, and discovering along the way. I suspect these shifts also allows us to celebrate good work every day and cheer from the rooftops when great things happen, instead of struggling to document whether we met our metrics, got to the outcomes we predicted, and changed the world in just the right way.

All of these changes are enabled by a redefinition of success, but are also grounded in the shifts we’re already taking on: power shifting, complexity-aware systems change, and emergent strategies. What’s the harm in letting go of definitions of success that we rarely achieve, and leaning into a new way of thinking?