There is still an emphasis on funding what is visible, tangible or easy to understand measure. Systemic transitions require intentional activity at multiple levels. In particular, the hidden wiring of systems is often ignored, yet without tackling this, much of our change efforts and resources become futile. And the interdependencies – funding and financing that recognises the intersections

Suzy Glass

Speakers:

Farzana Khan

Executive Director, Healing Justice London

Alastair Parvin

Open Systems Lab

Farah Elahi

Head of Community Engagement, Greater London Authority

Ali Torabi

Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust

For more information about our speakers, please check out our Full Speakers List

An orientation narrative - what is this session and why have we included it?

What kinds of work need funding in order to speed up the transition to a more equitable, regenerative future where people and planet can thrive? Our view is shaped by a version of the Geels/Fraser model (see below): work is needed at multiple levels: the soil and roots (movements, communities); the niche and deep local work (local projects and coalitions); the infrastructure/regime level (policy, legal frameworks, regulation); and finally the less tangible but equally vital landscape/narrative/paradigm level (mindsets, stories, myths).

Because of its fondness of measurable outcomes, there is a tendency in philanthropy to pay particular attention to the ‘niche’ - the local projects and initiatives that are visible and easier perhaps to define.

But funders cannot expect grassroots organisations to carry the weight of transformative work alone.  This panel is about the plurality of what needs funding when doing transformative work: there is no need for choices here, all these elements are required. Drawing on the image below, we think that there is a need to fund the movements work AND the infrastructure work. We need to fund the healing work AND the innovation work. We need to fund the hard and hidden wiring AND the more intangible work of narratives and culture-making. We need to fund policy and regulation work AND the new alternatives. And, crucially, we need to fund the ‘systems readiness’ - the conditions for change.

Power Shift Framework (Fraser and Glass 2020), an adapted version of Geels et al’s Socio-technical Transitions Theory

Work from our panelists -

Alastair’s work

• Open Systems Lab
• We need new operating systems, whose job is that?