Date: Saturday, June 21, 2025
Hello! My name is Muniba Ahmad, and I’m a Senior Consultant with ORS Impact – we specialize in systems change evaluation, learning, and strategy.
I recently attended the Northern California Grantmakers’ annual conference themed “Becoming Our Vision.” The current upheaval in the social sector was front and center, with a strong call to action for philanthropy to spend for purpose over perpetuity. Foundations were asked “If not now, then when?” regarding increasing investments beyond the requisite 5%. Civil society is facing unprecedented challenges, as we are witnessing attacks on institutions from nonprofits to universities to foundations to law firms. Panelists called these the first attacks on “failsafe” institutions in recent history, and offered investing in people power as the only true “failsafe.” Power was a central theme for contextualizing this moment of polycrisis (crises of economy, climate, and democracy that are fundamentally crises of power).
As evaluators, how can we meet the moment? Below, I offer considerations to push our thinking and practice in partnership with social change actors.
Systems in Upheaval. One panelist asked: “What are we rebuilding, what are we protecting, what are we creating?” From a systems perspective, what is the impact we wish to achieve now? Where do we hold the line, and where can we play offense? What are our strategies for existing systems – and are there opportunities to create new ones? Can strategies cut across systems for outsized impact? Do the underlying assumptions behind our theories of change still hold, and if not, how do we adapt?
Organization Innovation. When external factors continue to shift and shock the current operating environment, actors may need to innovate. What happens when previous ways of working are no longer possible due to legal and financial barriers? What if we use emergent learning and strategy to support organizations as they innovate – from nonprofit operations, to mobilizing resources, to other functions not yet obvious – and share lessons with the field?
Ecosystem Strategy. Innovation may happen within individual organizations, and at an ecosystem level with multiple actors. A previous post articulates complexity concepts including “emergence (patterns emerge from self-organization among interacting agents), and dynamic adaptations (interacting elements and agents respond and adapt to each other).” How is the ecosystem responding, and what does this tell us about necessary supports and strategies? For example, for grantees advancing multiracial democracy, what is needed to build a robust and reliable infrastructure to meet the moment and to inoculate against future threats? Is it investing in new organizations, and strengthening current organizations and leadership? Are there structures (e.g. coalitions, pooled funds) that can derisk the work for individual organizations? Is there a unifying vision?
A time of uncertainty is also a time of possibility. As we envision and work for equitable systems, I’ll end with an excerpt from Michael Quinn Patton’s book Developmental Evaluation: “Complexity theory shows that great changes can emerge from small actions. Change involves a belief in the possible, even the ‘impossible.’ Moreover, social innovators don’t follow a linear pathway of change; there are ups and downs, roller-coaster rides along cascades of dynamic interactions, unexpected and unanticipated divergences, tipping points and critical mass momentum shifts. Indeed, things often get worse before they get better as systems change creates resistance to and pushback against the new.”
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