Passing in the Dark: Making Visible Philanthropy's Hidden and Conflicting Mental Models for Systems Change.

Autor: Lynn, Jewlya, Coffman, Julia
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Zdroj: Foundation Review; Jun2024, Vol. 16 Issue 1, p142-160, 19p
Abstrakt: In this new 2024 article, the authors argue that while the need for philanthropy to focus on systems change as a way to scale and sustain impact is now widely accepted, the sector largely fails to recognize that there are different mental models for how to change systems. Sometimes the approaches foundations use are based on competing mental models or models that are not a good fit for the systems, problems, strategies, or practices they are using. The authors describe two mental models for systems change being used in philanthropy: systems dynamics and systems emergence. Strategies that use the systems-dynamics mental model aim at points of high leverage in a system and predict the kinds of changes that will occur. Strategies that use the systems-emergence mental model look for parts of the system that are under-resourced and experiment with ways to disrupt or reinforce them. This article explores these two mental models, provides examples of foundation strategies that use each approach, and offers tools for aligning mental models with philanthropic practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Databáze: Complementary Index