Systems change approaches are popular among funders these days but there is still more talk than action. How can we change that? We invite you to join a conversation focused on putting the principles of systems change into practice.

This event is part of the Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors Systems Shifting Initiative helping funders drive meaningful and enduring change.

Introduced by Latanya Mapp, CEO of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, and moderated by Heather Grady, the speakers were:

• Renata Piazzon of Arapyaú, a Brazilian philanthropic organisation committed to structural change
• Jess Fleuti of the Skoll Foundation, which is supporting grantees to create more healthy information ecosystems
• Imran Ahmed of the Center for Countering Digital Hate, a Skoll partner, addressing hate online by tackling the root cause - an unaccountable tech sector

A few highlights from the event

Heather: I want to start by saying a few things about Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors. Our mission is to accelerate philanthropy in pursuit of a just world. We are a global nonprofit working toward philanthropic growth and innovation, with a diverse team of experienced grant-makers with a depth of knowledge across the spectrum of issue areas. We were founded in 2002, and are one of the world’s largest philanthropic service organisations. Our partnerships with Alliance magazine and with many of those on this webinar represent how we aim to achieve our vision. By uniting people, ideas, partnerships and resources in bigger, bolder and more innovative ways.

Latanya: The topic really is to illuminate the importance of deep collaboration to solve the urgent problems facing our world. And as RPA has found in our work on systems change over the last eight years, the systems we have in the world are not broken. Rather these systems work for those who have the power and influence to control them. I have worked in development philanthropy for more than 30 years now. And I have seen systems changed over that time – most for the better but some for the worst.

We have to work together with collective action if we are to ensure that those most deeply impacted by these systems are also the architects of the system, and the systemic change that is required. Today’s speakers will illustrate how grantee partners and funders can work together to challenge global information ecosystem, that is built on a market system that privileges profit over the wellbeing of the people who use these everyday structures. So each of these three organisations are field builders, strengthening networks and catalysing solutions that would be impossible if they didn’t have collaboration at the heart of their work.

Renata: Arapyaú is a Brazilian philanthropic organisation that exists for 15 years now, to promote the fair, inclusive and low carbon development of Brazil. Through this 15-year history we have learned that to talk about climate, we cannot talk about climate. We really need to talk about development. We need to talk about prosperity. So that’s why in our vision is low carbon development of the country.

I was in Manaus last week, in the Amazon region. I heard from one of the biggest business leaders in the region. You know what? We don’t really care about forests here. We live in Manaus but we want a better life. We want to create the conditions for investments for the standing forest to generate income for those that live in the forest. It seems obvious but our approach to climate does not involve all of that all the time. We really want to create other examples of business other than cattle for example, with the cowboy culture in the Amazon region that is really successful. Without this economic guarantee we won’t achieve climate security, food security, energy transition, and everything that we want in net zero 2050. So that’s why we have been known as incubators of networks and initiatives that promote systemic change. We have this premise of medium to long-term horizon investments with local engagement and putting people at the centre of the discussion. We’re not talking about nature-based solutions, we’re advocating for nature and people-based solutions.

We truly believe that nothing can be achieved in isolation, so collaboration is key. For that we need to mobilise and coordinate diverse actors including civil society, philanthropy, academia, public and private sectors. So we are really convinced that we need to bring everyone to the table. We need to give up on reaching consensus and we need to find convergence. That’s a big difference. We don’t necessarily need to agree with 100% of what everyone at the table said. But allow it to continue, so that is what we’re seeking for when we put together civil society, philanthropy, academia, and the public and private sector.  

Jess: Throughout [Skoll Foundation’s] history we have funded social entrepreneurs and social innovators across a wide number of issue areas, including democracy, climate, global health, and justice and equity. A few years ago we really started to see a really common challenge emerging across all of those areas. We were hearing directly from our portfolio of grantees across the gamut that mis- and dis-information were really becoming a barrier to these grantees’ ability to advance their work. We also fundamentally believe that a healthy democracy requires healthy information ecosystems and sources of high quality information, so that citizens can come together and solve these big collective challenges – whether that is climate policy, or an appropriate public health response to a pandemic. We started some exploratory grant-making in this space in 2020 and 2021 through our strategy office. Then we ultimately decided just last year, at the beginning of 2023, to really start building a dedicated portfolio centred on advancing information integrity globally.

So in terms of what we fund under this program, social innovation has always been at the core of what the Skoll Foundation funds. We look for innovators who are changing the broader system in which they work; they’re not just addressing the symptoms of a problem but they’re really looking at the root causes, and how to shift those systems permanently.  

Imran: Disinformation and hate are inextricably interlinked. All hatreds rely on lies. All of them. And we wanted to understand why lies that underpin hate were becoming so prevalent.

Ours was a systems analysis, so we have the time and space to look at these things systematically. Also we have the real advantage in the UK – this was a gift that was given to us – that it was happening simultaneously on both the left and the right. There was a disinformation crisis being generated on both sides. Not just that, but we could look overseas in June of 2016 when I really started the planning for CCDH, and we could see that it was happening in the US at the same time as that 2016 election. We realised it wasn’t a result of one individual. It wasn’t based on contingent circumstances. This is a systemic problem. And so it requires systemic analysis. And it would require in time a systemic solution. I think that was a gift that we were given, that if we hadn’t been given that we might have seen it as being the result of Donald Trump or X or Y or Z. And what we settled on was that essentially what we were looking at was the inevitable negative externalities of a major economic shift.

You can watch the full video here: