Click here to read the summary report.

No one person can change the deeply entrenched levers of power that guide and control our global systems. The good news: Through collaboration, relationship-building, and deep levels of trust, philanthropy has the tools to transform these systems of power.

As part of this work, Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors’ Shifting Systems Initiative gathered important stakeholders on the margins of the 79th United Nations General Assembly for its latest workshop, “Collaborating to BUILD Transformational Change.”

Using lessons gleaned from the Ford Foundation’s BUILD initiative and its longtime leader, Kathy Reich, this workshop explored actionable pathways to accelerate systems change and shared key insights and best practices with participants. Critically, this session dove into both the what and the how of what philanthropy must do to enact change of this magnitude. Through rich conversations, the workshop surfaced a number of important themes, topics, and insights that are summarized below.

The What

• Shifting to trust-based philanthropy remains paramount to overall long-term success in systems-change work. Without fully trusting grantees’ ability to know what their own communities need, the philanthropic sector cannot hope to shift systems worldwide.
• Philanthropy is not done in a vacuum. It is the work of collaboration, humility, and resource-sharing. A shared future involves us all. Philanthropy must forge its path together.
• Philanthropy must also be flexible if it is to succeed. Shifting systems on this scale inevitably involves failure. Embrace that failure and learn from it.
• Incremental changes are positive, but philanthropy is at an inflection point where it must do more. To truly improve the lives of the communities it serves, philanthropy must pivot to long-term, systemic, and transformational changes.
• Systems change is complex and cross-sectoral. It involves actors from government, philanthropy, civil service, and industry working in tandem.

The How

• Arts and culture have a unique way of producing systems change that other mediums lack. Art has the power to tug at society’s emotional heartstrings, and humans oftentimes respond more viscerally to emotional language rather than rational appeals. To change systems, we must open our imaginations, think creatively, and speak to peoples’ hearts.
• Narratives and the stories society tells itself play an enormous role in creating lasting change. To effectively shift systems, philanthropy must alter some of these narratives – particularly around the inclusion of the Global South and indigenous cultures.
• If philanthropy changes its tactics, it must also adopt new imaginative ways to evaluate a new view of success that incorporate the intangibility of some metrics.

Click here to read the summary report.

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