Reflecting on systems change and our PMP journey

Reflecting on systems change and our PMP journey

The evolution of our framing and understanding of systems change

Janet Digby for the Peter McKenzie Project, A project of the JR McKenzie Trust

The Peter McKenzie Project was named after Peter, a grandson of JR McKenzie, who decided that one specific fund should be spent down entirely over up to 20 years, to achieve positive social change. He was kind and thoughtful and wouldn’t like to have the project bear his name, but it does because, sadly, he died in 2012.

It took some time to set things up so that Peter’s vision could be realised, including forming a Working Group, deciding on an area of focus (reducing child and family poverty) and on a specific approach (systems change). This process at times felt slow and messy with a growing pressure to begin making grants but we also had advice from some very good people not to rush those key initial decisions.

While for the Project spending-down this fund is a very big investment, we were acutely aware the overall size of the pūtea was small in relation to the size of the problem, and in comparison to other players, most obviously government.

This article describes some of the changes we have made along the way to both our framing, and also to our understanding of the approach PMP is committed to investing in. A great deal of our learning has come from our kaikōkiri (changemakers we fund), Working Group and Committee members and from other experts who are building understanding of how to create systems change.

Framing changes

Our framing of this kaupapa has evolved considerably over time. It’s worth mentioning here that children are part of families so while initially we spoke of child poverty, we soon shifted that to encompass whānau poverty. This later shifted to a positive frame; ‘an Aotearoa New Zealand where all children and whānau flourish’.

The goal of the PMP is to enable children and families in New Zealand to flourish. As a result, the significant negative effects of poverty for children and young people, which are often lifelong, will be reduced.

Landing on an approach

When we were developing the project, much of the focus on poverty reduction in Aotearoa New Zealand until that point had been on funding new or existing programmatic interventions which were needed because the systems settings in place resulted in increasing levels of material hardship for children and families.

We know programmes and services can be effective. However, they generally locate the problem at the level of the individual, without addressing other causes which are often significant. And even good programmes and services generally don’t become mainstream and can’t get long-term funding, plus they require considerable resources to continue. As a result, they often don’t achieve scale by reaching more people.

The PMP Working Group investigated the complexities of child poverty as this had been identified as a key barrier to wellbeing in Aotearoa. Poverty, the logic went, was a complex problem, and so it required different approaches to address the root causes and make a meaningful and lasting difference.

Over two years, the a range of approaches for the Project were considered. In 2014, the Group landed on an approach for the fund, one focused on systems change or ‘upstream’ change. The hope was that in doing this, the project would be able to punch above its weight in terms of creating impact by spending down the entire fund over 20 years.

“Programmatic interventions help people beat the odds. Systemic interventions can help change their odds.” Karen Pittman, CEO of the Forum on Youth Investment.

The Working Group and more recently its successor governance group, the Committee, acknowledged the importance of taking risks, and agreed to set aside expectations that change will happen within a short timeframe as is often expected.

Our first rōpū was funded in 2017, following a Call For Ideas which attracted 250 mini-proposals, a number of which received initial seed funding prior to larger grants. Many of the people who submitted ideas were great at describing the problems in the system, but quite a few of the ideas received weren’t using a systems approach, rather they offered existing, new and improved programmes which aimed to make a difference to a number of families. The Call for Ideas helped the PMP understand that perhaps the systems change field wasn’t yet well developed in New Zealand.

How things have changed

As a result of the growing body of knowledge locally and internationally, and our experience of funding and learning from our groups, PMP has developed a more nuanced understanding of systems change. Our project is now funding ten groups who are all working on systems change approaches to help whānau thrive at various levels and parts of the system.

Compared with when the PMP began, there are now many more systems change practitioners in Aotearoa who have considerable experience and skill, and a number who are recognised internationally as shaping the field of practice in important ways.

Recently, our team have found Bill Sharpe’s Three Horizon’s model a useful conceptual framework for our conversations as we reflect on the Project to date and consider how we can ensure the second half of the PMP creates the most impact. Our conclusion is that PMP should focus on funding ‘green shoots’ which fall into the horizon 2+ category, as these can in turn go on to become horizon 3 transformative change.

For the PMP, in addition to funding waka, it became clear that there was also value in helping to build local capacity and capability for systems change (field-building) and being a critical friend/provocateur to ngā kaikōkiri. PMP is also bringing our funded groups together as a to connect, learn and celebrate, focusing on the spaces in between. We now see an increase in rōpū (groups)  collaborating and connecting with each other outside our twice yearly gatherings.

So given our developing understanding, what do our team now think systems change practice looks like? How can we identify it and how can this help with funding decisions?

Working together

• Focus on building an ecosystem of change, an ecosystem of initiatives as change is often the result of the whole picture, rather than the sum of the parts (for this reason awareness raising isn’t in itself systems change)
• Work is inherently collaborative with people developing strong ways of working together, and crossing boundaries (with many-to-many relationships). Over time this will mean the systems change progress becomes less reliant on the funded group that has been driving it, as it becomes more distributed
• Focused on upstream change, understanding the ‘web’ of causes
• Strong appetite for learning, curiosity and adaptation (including finding windows of opportunity)
• Values the uniqueness of communities and the collective

Working with complexity

• Acknowledge and work with complexity, despite discomfort, and building capability for this work
• Change is focused on shifting the conditions of systems change e.g. those from Kania et al’s The Water of Systems Change, Bill Sharpe’s Three Horizons model and many others
• Employs non-linear and holistic approaches – with lots needing to occur at different levels, ideally with these aspects connected in different ways
• Understanding we are all part of the systems and structures, resulting in strongly reflective practice
• We are keen to understand what groups are learning about systems change practice (problem definition and understanding is often strong) and how they are applying resources to enable learning
• As a funder, helping groups to ‘keep the lights on’ might be valuable if it means a group can take advantage of pivotal moments to step forward and be a catalyst of change (move to 2+ or horizon 3)

What are some signs that things are moving towards transformation, lasting change?

• New innovations are evident which have the potential to be transformative (2+ in the Three Horizons model)
• ‘Repatterning’ is visible within the system, including power shifts
• Leaders can discern between innovations which are H2+ and which are H2- (e.g., those that are likely to sustain the current system, rather than transforming it)
• Self-organisation is evident, demonstrating distributed power and influence
• Efforts to create change exist outside those based primarily on relationships (which can stall if individuals move on and limit lasting change)
• Leaders make time to look up, reflect and see the big picture
• Funding and resource flows begin to shift towards communities
• Government and wider society ends up promoting and supporting change